He was ready.
A light behind him was turned lower so that the background was dimmed, but a small, brighter light was by the window and he himself would hold it. He sensed the moment. The crowd was growing impatient, should not be kept waiting any longer. The window was opened. The voices were stilled.
He did not need a microphone; he gestured for quiet and the crowd fell silent. He told them that the Emir had now rested, but that great danger faced him; there might be traitors amongst them and they must exercise great vigilance. All around them were enemies, but they were cowards who would not show themselves. He promised that a great blow would soon be struck by those chosen by God. He gestured for them to begin yelling the Emir’s name again, he whipped up their fervour, and then stood aside.
The strain of an old man’s weight was taken. He was carried forward, was lifted up. The Egyptian gave the signal to the Emir’s wife. He held the light so that its beam caught the chin and the beard and highlighted the bones in his cheek and his hooked nose. She lifted his hand, did it well and would not have been seen. He could not have been certain that the Emir had heard him – word was that he suffered deafness from long-ago bombing – but the noise of the crowd below would have been sharp in his ears. He could not say anything, of course, but that was of lesser importance. If a leader was seen, his strength went undisputed, it was enough.
A last wave, and he was eased back from the window and returned to the dark recesses of the room. The Emir was laid down.
Outside, the crowd bayed support. The young man thought it possible that the Emir might have registered the applause, and the devotion of his followers. He wanted him alive for one more day, and told them when they would go, and how it would be done.
Stunned, unwilling to believe it, Corrie watched as the window was closed. Was rooted. Belcher tugged at him, but he would not shift.
‘They are going to move him?’
‘They said so.’
‘We stay and we see it happen. I need to see it happen in front of my eyes. Go.’
‘But I can’t. You know I can’t.’
They stayed back, a little way into the alley. From there they would have a better view of the vehicle, would have the proof that the Sixer needed.
‘You’re not going to want to hear it.’
‘I’m a big boy,’ Jericho said. ‘Rough with the smooth, and all that.’
The signal had been received. Just the call for the pick-up to be launched. No indication how Crannog had gone. Jericho sat in the co-pilot’s seat and faced a mass of dials, few of which meant anything to him. The message had been faint and atmospherics strong; and he’d been told that they were fortunate to have that degree of communication. Nothing on whether a High Value Target had been taken down; nothing either on whether casualties were among his little force. Just the barest bones, and the start of an intolerable wait.
‘The conditions up there are not straightforward.’
‘Which means that it would not be prudent to set off for that location and then ditch.’
‘About right.’
‘I have men there, Jean-Luc, boots on the ground. I’m not inclined to walk away.’
He was short-changing a good man. The pilot had hours in the bank, had done time with the squadron tasked to ferry special forces in and out of bad places, and would have known at first hand about Arabian storms, and the effect of whipped sand, and the gusts that channelled above high ground and peaked above the shifting dunes. It wasn’t not fair to moan. The pilot knew what was at stake.
‘The hope is that it will improve in the late morning – that is twelve or fifteen hours’ time.’
‘Jean-Luc, may I be very frank?’
‘I would expect you to be.’
‘God’s truth, I would not sleep well at night, not for the rest of my life, if we left my gaggle of Intrepids in that heathen place while I sat safe and warm.’
He felt a trickle of shame at the pressure he was placing on Jean-Luc, but the pilot replied, ‘Tomorrow we might get up. And, as we are being frank, the Americans have better stuff than is available to me.’
‘To go to them with the begging bowl because we cannot finish what we started – not possible. Thank you, my friend, we’ll go when we can. That’s the way it is.’
‘When we can.’
Jericho tried to picture where they were, in that storm, how they fared, what damage they had left in their wake. Himself, he would be the toast of VBX within twenty-four hours, or consigned to a lamppost, swinging in that bloody wind.
The child found him.
She had scratched her legs and bruised her elbows and torn her robe in the descent, and her hair, carefully combed to seem lustrous beneath her headscarf, had fallen free and trailed on her shoulders.
She held him as she thought a lover would.
Drifting away from the crowd – and she had seen them, both of them – she had gone up the hill, searching for him in every corner and doorway. She had found the place where fodder and livestock were kept. She had keen eyes; she would have said they were as good as those of any wild animal that hunted in darkness. She had looked over the edge of the rock on which the upper part of the village was built, and had seen the tumbling fall of rubbish and rock loosened by rainstorms and the bushes that grew from crevices, and had seen him. He was lying on his back, the white of the long shirt he had worn showing clearly. She had scrambled down.
His head was against her chest, his mouth near to her breast. She bared herself, but his tongue did not move and his cheek was cold against her.
This would have been the man she would have lain with. She had thought of it often as she sat on the step in the corridor against the open door, watching him work. The Ghost’s body would have been clean and scrubbed, and now the chance had been taken from her, to become his wife in a marriage blessed by her father. But she would have been with him before and they would not have stoned her as a whore because of his importance. She would have stayed with him each day and each night and would not have cared if the drones had tracked him, and would have had the admiration of all the girls in the village of her age.
Because she held him so closely against her body, she could feel the sharpness of the bones meeting at his knees, and those at his elbows, and the bluntness of his hips – where she would have pressed close, and would have felt him – and another edge protruded, gouged into her body.
She had the pistol.
In a Yemeni village, every boy or girl was familiar with firearms. She could have stripped it blindfolded or in darkness. She thought it was a Makharov, 9 mm, with an eight-bullet magazine, effective range fifty paces. It was clean and oiled. She detached the magazine and checked that it was filled, and replaced it, and the safety was on, and she slipped it inside the pouch of the garment beneath her dress.
And she held him again and could have cried in anger because she could not wake him. Tears flowed on her cheeks, frustration biting at her.
The old man led his caravan beyond Marib and around the line of villages to the north and west of the town, leaving the flames of the refinery behind him. He pressed on, hoping to be off this rough, stony, difficult ground by tomorrow morning, early. The winds that he and all his ancestors called shamals would not slow the beasts; they were well watered and could travel now for a week and would reach the market – if God blessed him – in that time. He pushed forward, wanting to be in the desert sands, where the camels moved well and without complaint. The winds here were bad, so he kept a cloth wound firmly across his face and sometimes used it to protect his eyes, and relied then on the instinct of the big male animal on the halter tied to his wrist, and thought it would take him on a straight track without deviation. There was much to admire in these creatures. He had handled them all his life, and yet was humble enough to admit to his grandson that he knew little of them. In the next few hours they must climb an escarpment beyond the villages, thread their way up the slope, and then go into the full force of the wi
nd on the plateau above, but they would be safe then from the strangers who brought war, death and uncertainty.
They should have gone, but had not.
The vehicle was cleaned, the hose thrown away and the inside dried. The machine-gunner was back in place, the animals beside him. The driver was at the wheel and the engine idled. The crowd were pushed back and the area close to the Toyota was cleared, retreating like a receding tide. Belcher and the Sixer stayed at the back and were unseen, unheard. Belcher thought the guards knew the truth . . . It was a fake, a fraud; the man was hurt, and might have been close to death, and the theatre was to mislead the faithful. In both Syria and his early months in Yemen, there had been air strikes when those prominent in the movement had been killed. Men were unresponsive to orders from the second tier; there was confusion and fear because it was assumed, always, that a traitor was among them, and the drones and fast jets were being guided in. He had lain in his bed since coming to Yemen, after a leader had been killed, tossing and sweating, knowing he would not have been able to resist interrogation if the security men came for him. He assumed one man in the first-floor room had taken control, but could not think who that might be. He felt danger stacking up. Beside him, not a word was spoken. To Belcher it was obvious play-acting, the appearance at the window, no address, and no gathering of elders and local fighting commanders. But beside him, the crowd believed what they saw. The shock of failure was also evident on the Sixer’s face.
Belcher hissed, ‘We have to go, have to. It is maximum risk. We have to—’
‘Not before I have seen.’
A head turned, and then another. Eyes fastened on them. Belcher reached out, snatched at his arm and tried to pull the bloody Sixer back, but failed. More eyes were glinting at them, lips curled behind their beards. If the mob were rallied, they would not outrun it, and . . . The door of the house opened. Guards spilled out. The wife came first, and the crowd turned away from them and focused on the door again. The Emir came out. Men huddled close around him, and his name was chanted. The denunciations of enemies, of traitors, grew louder, and the call for victory. Belcher saw the top of his head, the guards hemming him in, hustling him to the vehicle’s back door. The wife was already in and he was following her. The head of the Emir was upright, strangely so, as if his neck were stretched, and the crown of his turban seemed wedged close to the roof of the pick-up. A small man was on the doorstep of the house, and he was pointing, gesticulating. Belcher saw that he had assumed power, and his own name was called, faces turned, and the security men spotted him. He felt weak at the knees, what the fuck else? He looked beside him, then again up the alley and saw the retreating back, as though the Sixer had seen enough. Belcher could not have run. In fact, with the fear making his legs and arms weak constricting the breathing in his throat, there was precious little that Belcher could have done. He went forward. The pick-up was filled with the security men and the Emir and his wife, and almost across their knees was the small man. Two hands came out and he was lifted in. The Toyota’s engine revved, then the pick-up moved, and for a couple of stretched and awkward paces he ran beside it and then he was hoisted in. He fell into the back.
The crowd parted wide enough for the pick-up to go through, then the driver stamped on the pedal, and they surged through the lower street of the village, where it widened. There was a small window at the back of the cab. He could see through it, and realised that two lengths of pipe held the Emir’s head in place. He saw the wife’s hand, too, thin with talon-like fingers, holding a small towel and dabbing at the front of the head, then saw the towel again and the bloodstain on it.
As they left the village, the weapons were armed and speed increased. They hit the broken stones of the track and the vehicle shook and bounced.
A fighter never asked for explanations. Went with the flow, as Belcher did, though his stomach had sunk, and he was cold, and alone, and his dreams seemed ended.
He moved fast.
The crowd emptied quickly out of the wide area behind Corrie, and he felt vulnerable suddenly. He should not have run but couldn’t stop himself; he had seen what he had demanded to see, and little that was different from what he’d viewed in the opened window.
It had all been for nothing.
They would march him in. He’d be taken up in the elevator that went to Authorised Only personnel, and he would be seated at a wide table, a plastic glass and a bottle of mineral water in front of him. He would be questioned. Jericho would not be there, gone already, pushed out on his neck and fuck-all thanks for his efforts, and George would have done the backstabbing at an earlier session. Let’s get this straight, Cornelius, from square one, we are not seeking to apportion blame. We just want to know where it went wrong, on whose watch. You went there with an action plan, which some mighty persons say was flawed, and you looked to take the life of a senior AQ commander – with the risk that such action contradicts SIS regulations on conduct befitting – and there was no consideration to giving our esteemed and better-resourced allies the information that was gathered. And then apparently failed to take that life. You were in the company of two men who were not fit for purpose as far as this calibre of mission was concerned. By your own admission, you killed a relatively unknown engineer who was reportedly investigating the possibility of implanting devices into airline passengers. You endangered the safety of a deep penetration agent – Belcher – and ended his possible effectiveness. Well, that’s a start, Cornelius. In your own time, please.
A rare fury drove him, and he did not seem to feel the pain in his ribs, or in his leg, and the image of the conference room filled his mind, and the blinds would be down and the view of the river shut out, and they would know sweet nothing of what had gone on there, or of the archaeologist, or of the courage of Belcher, and the big mouth of Rat who had done all the talk but had not delivered. He should have calmed himself, but did not, and seemed to rehearse the rebuttals he would throw into the faces opposite him – but the operation had ended in failure, and he could not escape that truth. Failure clung to him.
He ducked behind buildings. Those who had been in the crowds would be filtering out through the village behind him, and he might be challenged. He went through the fodder store and crawled past the livestock, swung his legs over the edge and let himself drop. He caught at stones and bushes, breaking his fall, and brought down rocks that rolled and bounced over him.
He fell; landed almost on top of her.
He was in no mood for mercy, and he reached out at her, his hand against the skin and shape of her breast. He knew now, not difficult, that this was the kid who had followed the Ghost, and that she had exposed herself to him. She hissed and he did not know whether it was fear, or anger, or . . . He saw her root inside her clothing, and sensed the weapon, heard the click of the safety and then its arming. Corrie lashed at her, the second time he had hit her, then tried to grasp her wrist. He could barely see it against the night cloud. A momentary struggle: he would not allow a kid, a girl, to take him.
She was sinewy, muscled, sank teeth into his arm, then raked his face with her nails. He tried to hit her again, a disabling blow, but she writhed clear of him. The strength seemed to leak from him. She was above him and her dress ripped noisily as he attempted to push her aside, and she brought the pistol down, wriggled to free his grip on her wrist, looked to aim at him. Corrie made a last big effort. The pistol was between them. He tilted it. He put pressure on her finger, might even have broken it. One shot, an explosion in his ear, deafening him. And Corrie felt the wet on his hands, and across his face. He crawled sideways and took himself clear of her.
He tried to run but his legs were a leaden weight and his breathing came hard. He did not know if the pursuit had begun. And he could add a line to the inquisition session around the bare table at VBX. And you killed a child when you left the village – be so good as to explain why that was necessary? He stumbled and collapsed and tripped, picked himself up, ran, and realised that the blo
od on his hand was not hers, but his own. He knew where he should go, did not know what strength was left in him.
Chapter 17
He had known this same weakness in Syria. The darkness was Corrie’s friend, protected him. Each step was a labour of determination; he had to force himself on, but had not yet heard any pursuit. He had no food in his belly and no water in his throat, a dull ache in his legs. The bleeding in his shoulder was spreading, and his arm spasmed with pain. He tried to recall what the survival men at the Fort, down on the coast, taught. He could see their faces and hear their voices, and it was mostly about succeeding in unarmed combat. They’d said, the instructors, that the principles of SERE, Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, had changed little since RAF fliers had been shot down in occupied Europe. No one ever stayed behind and asked for more information, or went to the bar in the evening and nursed a lime and soda and heard the anecdotes that always seemed the best part of the advice they could offer. After Corrie had come back from Aleppo there had been a call from Human Resources and a vague request that he might care to return to the Fort and talk to permanent staff there, but he had declined and it hadn’t seemed a big deal for him or for them. His own priority was distance and speed. Could not do distance well because of the kicking he’d been given, and could not do speed because the energy left in him was bleeding out through a deep flesh wound that would have debris in it from his clothing, and would already be infected. The target was a small and failing light. It might have been from a lamp and might have been from a dying fire, and was where he thought she was.
A sort of duty.
He was still a long way from her when the light guiding him brightened and widened. A vehicle had come slowly on the road and then turned on to the track leading to the dismantled army camp, where her tent was. It had parked up there, and Belcher and another were out of the vehicle, that was how Corrie saw it. He might have been two hundred yards short of the place. But the headlights were brilliant bright, and illuminated – amongst the circle of balaclavas – the turban of the Emir, as erect, as upright, as he had been at the village. It had been Corrie’s idea of duty that he should get to the woman, and take her out and escort her up the goat track of the incline, and then accompany her as they tramped across the terrain of the plateau – no lights and featureless ground – to the designated place where the helicopter would come in. Would definitely come in, because Rat would have called it up. Rat, who was a big mouth, Rat who had failed him. The dilemma hit him. Could he leave the survival of Henry Wilson to the turncoat Belcher? Could he . . .? He found the slope and started to climb, each step an effort. Rat had done the talk and had fired and had failed, and they were all running and none of them had anything to boast about as the Crannog mission came to its end. The anger drove him to go on and up, slowly.
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