by Chris Ryan
Joe scrambled the three metres back to the cliff?’s edge. His eyes narrowed as he saw the motionless form of Eva down below, wrapped in Kevlar and body armour and wearing the clothes Joe had stolen along with the bike.
She wasn’t moving.
Joe quickly detached the sight from the dead man’s sniper rifle and used it to zoom in on her. The tide was lapping around her head. Two seagulls had settled on her body. Although it was difficult at this distance to be sure, Joe thought he could make out a dark patch, about the size of his hand, on her hooded top. And he knew what that meant.
Icy dread crashed over him. He looked from his oldest friend to his son. Had he sacrificed one for the other?
He shoved the sight in his shoulder bag, quickly dismantled the sniper rifle, then picked Conor up from the floor as easily as if he was a rag doll. With his son lifted over his shoulder, he started to run through the bracken. There was a steep, rocky descent to the beach 150 metres to the north. He covered the ground in less than twenty seconds, even with Conor’s extra weight, spurred on by adrenalin and a deep, horrible sense of foreboding.
He descended sideways, but otherwise with no thought for his own personal safety as he scrambled and slipped down to the beach, barely aware of the rain that had just started to fall. As he ran towards Eva, the sand felt like glue, dragging him back, holding him down . . .
And then he was just two metres from her, laying Conor gently on his back and kneeling down in the cold, salty water as he pressed his hand to the dark patch which had doubled in size . . . ripping the hood back from Eva’s face to see it pale and waxy, her nose and half of her mouth submerged in the water. He scooped her up and moved her away from the water’s edge, before pressing his fingers to her neck. Her skin was icy, but there was a pulse. She was still alive. Just.
Joe pulled the top over her head to reveal her torso clad in body armour, her shoulders and elbows wrapped in Kevlar pads. The blood was seeping from her left side, where the front armoured plate met its rear twin. He quickly undid the straps that held the two together. She was wearing a T-shirt underneath it, and this too was saturated with blood. Joe pulled it up to see the damage. An open wound. Massive blood loss. The rain was heavy now, but not heavy enough to wash away the blood. He quickly unstrapped the Kevlar helmet from Eva’s head, ran to the sea and filled it with water. Back at her side, he poured the salty water over the wound. As the blood washed away, he saw a gash at the side of her abdomen about two inches long and found himself exhaling deeply with relief. It was a flesh wound, not an entry wound. The round must have ricocheted somehow and punctured the gap between the plates. Had the angle been only slightly different, she would have been dead.
But even this wound was dangerous. The blood was flowing again. Joe had to stem it. He grabbed the top – it was covered with salt and sand now, but he couldn’t do anything about that. He ripped it along one of its seams and then wrapped it round Eva’s abdomen, tying the sleeves in a tight knot so that the material pressed firmly against the wound. It was hardly ideal, but it was the best he could do.
Eva coughed. Seawater spilled from her mouth. Her eyes flickered open. At first he thought she couldn’t see anything – her pupils expanded and contracted as she tried to focus. But then her vision seemed to clear. ‘Joe?’ she whispered.
‘We’ve got to get you back to the house.’ Joe’s voice was breathless. ‘You’ve lost a lot of blood . . .’
‘Conor . . . ’
‘He’s . . . OK. He’s here. Eva, do you think you can walk?’ He knew he couldn’t safely carry them both, not in the state they were in.
Eva closed her eyes. With a great effort she nodded, then tried to push herself up onto her elbows, before sinking back into the sand.
Joe put his hands under her arms and helped her to a sitting position. Her face was creased with pain, but she gave no word of complaint. Moments later she had one arm around Joe’s shoulder as he bent to pick up Conor, who was still lying, eyes open, on the sand, shivering but otherwise motionless.
It was still not fully light. The beach was deserted. His son over his shoulder, his oldest friend leaning heavily on his other side, Joe staggered slowly back towards the cliff. They needed shelter. They needed care. The nearest place was a kilometre from the clifftop. It was a deserted house where the body of an old woman lay rotting at the bottom of the stairs. A place where Joe was hopeful of finding something that might tell him more about the man he had just sent to his death.
It was not in Mahmood Ashkani’s nature to smile often, but he did sometimes. It was a sign of how much Mansfield’s continued refusal to die had unnerved him that confirmation of his death had lifted a weight from his shoulders.
He glanced at the passenger seat, at his laptop and satellite phone, and at the small data stick that looked so ordinary but whose contents would, within a few hours, have been viewed by half the people on the planet. Then he glanced at the dashboard clock. Seven thirteen. No need to increase his speed. He had plenty of time.
He arrived at his destination half an hour later. It was the bleak entrance to a deserted slate mine that had long since been abandoned. He parked his car behind a ten-metre-high pile of slag, quite confident that nobody would disturb him here. He had not chosen this place for that reason, however, but simply because it was the right place to be. He plugged his satellite phone into the side of his laptop before doing the same with the data stick.
Then he turned his eyes to the sky.
Not long, he thought to himself.
Not long now.
TWENTY
The White House, 0200 hours EST.
Herb Sagan did not like Mason Delaney. He didn’t like the way he surrounded himself with pretty boys, or the way he so obviously felt superior to everyone. But he had to hand it to him. First bin Laden, now this. The President’s Chief of Staff, Jed Wallace, who was sitting with Sagan and Delaney, clearly felt the same.
Wallace’s face was white. ‘How did you get this information, Mason?’
The glance that Sagan and Delaney shared was only momentary, but filled with meaning.
‘Your predecessor was very fond of that question, Jed,’ Delaney sighed.
‘Mason, the President’s going to—’
‘The President, Jed, does not want to know where this information came from, believe me. It’s a lot easier for him to deny all knowledge when he has no knowledge, wouldn’t you say? And in approximately . . .’ he looked at his watch ‘. . . eight hours’ time, he’ll be able to tell the nation that he has just foiled a plot to blow up five domestic and international flights in mid-air, and that on top of his recent PR success in Pakistan. I don’t think right-minded people will be asking too many questions about where the information came from. Am I wrong?’
Wallace looked uncertain. ‘You know what his manifesto was, Mason. An end to torture . . . extraordinary rendition . . .’
Delaney started to stand up. There was a new edge to his voice. ‘Well, Jed, if the President would rather have a 9/11 of his very own . . .’
‘For God’s sake sit down, Mason,’ Wallace snapped. Delaney gave a look of mild surprise at this display of authority, before settling back once more. Wallace turned to Sagan. ‘Herb, run it past me one more time. If I’m going to wake him, I want to have my ducks in a row.’
Sagan nodded. He had notes in the bag by his feet, but having worked on this since breakfast time he didn’t need them. ‘We have evidence of a coordinated mid-air strike over American soil. Five flights in total. Projected death toll, just over 1000 people. Thanks to Mason’s source, however, we have the precise flight numbers. We know which aircraft the terrorists are targeting. Tampa to JFK, Boston to LAX, Orlando to Montreal, Philadelphia to Seattle, Cincinnati to Newark. They all depart between 0500 and 0505 hours, so they’ll be in the air simultaneously.’
‘And in time for the whole eastern seaboard to wake up to the news,’ Mason murmured.
Sagan continued: ‘There’s a s
hampoo factory in Delaware. At midday yesterday we apprehended a US national who admitted receiving money from an unknown source in return for filling certain bottles of certain batches with the chemicals necessary to create binary explosives. The batches in question were earmarked for drugstores beyond the security gates at Tampa, Boston, Orlando, Philly and Cincinnati. They left the factory two weeks ago and there’s no way to trace them.’
Wallace’s face was still pale. ‘I’m assuming we need to ground all flights in and out of the US?’
Sagan and Delaney exchanged another glance.
‘That won’t be necessary, Jed,’ said Sagan. ‘We have the situation under control . . .’
‘How?’ Wallace breathed.
‘We’re going to isolate the terrorists before they get on the planes. We’re already coordinating with the Transportation Security Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And of course the Feds. We’ve planted air marshals among the passengers on each flight. We’ll load them onto buses from the gates, but none of them will get within sniffing distance of an actual aircraft. Once we’ve quarantined the passengers, we’ll search them. In a few hours’ time we’ll have a bunch of Al-Qaeda brains to pick. Without anything approaching coercion, naturally.’ He gave Wallace a flat look.
There was a silence in the room.
‘The President will need to give the final go-ahead for the strategy,’ Sagan said.
‘He’ll want to know the potential risk to the other passengers.’
‘I’m not going to sit here and tell you it’s risk-free, Jed.’
Wallace nodded. ‘Tampa, Boston, Orlando, Philadelphia, Cincinnati.’ He repeated Sagan’s list. ‘You’re sure that these five flights are the only ones that are being targeted?’ He had directed the question towards Delaney, who affected a look of surprise at having been consulted.
‘I’m ninety-three per cent sure,’ he said. He smiled at Sagan. ‘Herb does love his statistics.’
Wallace ignored the barb. ‘I’ll wake the President now,’ he said. ‘Wait here. I’ll be back with an answer.’
He left the room. Sagan and Delaney sat silently, two enemies, joined by a common purpose.
‘Ninety-three per cent, Mason?’ Sagan asked.
Delaney raised an eyebrow. ‘Maybe ninety-two.’
The two men went back to their wordless waiting.
Pembrokeshire, 0715 hours.
Under normal circumstances it would have taken no more than fifteen minutes for Joe to get from the beach to Ashkani’s safe house. Carrying a traumatized Conor, and with Eva limping along beside him, it took nearly an hour. By the time they approached the front door, which Joe had left unlocked, he had given up offering Eva words of encouragement to help her push through the barrier of pain and exhaustion. He could feel her body convulsing. She badly needed medical attention. So did Conor.
The hallway stank of the rotting corpse of the old woman. Eva showed no sign that she even knew what she was stepping over – her glazed eyes were as desensitized as Conor’s. With difficulty, Joe manoeuvred the two of them up the stairs. It was with an overwhelming sense of relief that he turned left at the top, into the room where he had found Ashkani’s passport. He didn’t know why he wanted them to stay in this room – it was just a vague sense that Ashkani, whoever he was, had been a pro, and that there was a chance of finding medical supplies in here. Plus, of course, he wanted to strip the place down for information.
He helped Eva and Conor over to the bed on the far side of the room. Eva collapsed heavily onto its edge. Her lips had a bluish tinge. Her shaking hands clutched the wound on the side of her abdomen. Joe gently lowered Conor from his shoulder and sat his son next to her.
‘You OK, champ?’
Conor’s blank face looked around the room. For a few seconds he appeared not to know where he was, but then his eyes widened. He slipped off the bed, his head in his hands, and curled up into a little ball on the floor. No words escaped his throat, just a pathetic mixture of frightened sounds.
Joe knelt down and put his hands awkwardly on his son’s shoulders. ‘Hey champ,’ he whispered. ‘It’s all right . . . he’s gone . . . I’m here now . . .’ His words had no effect. The boy remained huddled on the thin carpet.
Joe turned his attention to Eva. Her face was racked with pain and she winced as he removed the hooded top to look at the wound. It was a mess, no doubt about it. The skin where the bullet had clipped her was torn and the tissue beneath it was a bloody pulp. The heavy bleeding seemed to have stopped, but Eva was very weak and in great pain. He couldn’t risk moving her any further.
‘Ashkani?’ she breathed. Her voice was fragile and cracked.
Joe looked around the room. ‘You needn’t worry about him.’
A pause. Speech was clearly a huge effort for Eva. ‘Is he dead?’
‘I shot him in the back of the head. That normally does the trick.’
Joe strode into the hallway and started checking out the other rooms on the first floor. The old lady’s bedroom – a riot of floral wallpaper, floral bedding and a violet carpet – revealed nothing but clothes, photographs and a handful of old jewellery. The spare bedroom, with its two single beds, was similarly empty. His search of the bathroom, which didn’t give the impression of having been used very often, despite the limescale stains around the edge of the roll-top bath and inside the sink, was more productive. In the mirrored cabinet above the sink he found a pile of large swabs, still in their sterile packaging, and a roll of bandage. He rushed back to Eva, ripped open the swabs and pressed them against her wound, before tying them into position with the bandage. Eva winced, but didn’t cry out. Joe was grateful for that. ‘You’ll be OK,’ he told her, and she nodded as though she believed him.
The cupboard in the corner was filled with grey suits – nothing in the pockets – as well as a couple of old coats that he assumed belonged to the dead woman at the bottom of the stairs. He pulled out the coats and took them over to Conor and Eva. Eva accepted the coat over the shoulders of her trembling frame. Conor was still on the floor. Joe lifted him up again and laid him on the bed where once more he curled foetus-like. He lay the coat over him to keep him warm.
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said, and hurried downstairs, stopping only to pull the old lady’s body out of the hallway and into the front room. Conor was traumatized, that much was clear. The last thing he needed to see was dead bodies on the floor.
In the kitchen he looked for provisions. He found a cupboard full of cat food, a bottle of Ribena, the remains of a loaf of Hovis that was covered in a dusting of mould and, in the fridge, an unopened carton of milk. He filled two glasses with water, as both Eva and Conor needed rehydration, even if there was no food to give them. Back in the bedroom he managed to get some fluid into Eva, but Conor would not, or could not, move. Joe stood over him, and for the briefest moment he was back in JJ’s house, lying next to Caitlin, shortly before their life had been ripped apart.
I’ll be a dad, he was telling himself. I’ve had enough of being a soldier . . .
He snapped back to the present and looked around. This had been Ashkani’s room. His safe house. It had all the hallmarks – remote, unexpected, easy to leave. He had no doubt that the bastard had been paying the old lady a fair whack to keep this room available for him whenever he needed it. Who did she think he was? A travelling salesman, maybe? Someone who just wanted a place to get away to? And why had she ended up dead at the bottom of the stairs? Had she started to suspect something?
His thoughts turned to Ashkani himself. He remembered the man’s American passport. What did that mean? Whatever it meant, Joe needed to search this room. Find out everything he could about Mahmood Ashkani, if that really was his name. Find out who he was working for. And try to locate anything that might prove Joe’s own innocence.
Underneath the wardrobe he found four shoe boxes. They contained nothing but shoes. On top of the wardrobe was an old leather suitcase. Empty. He swi
ped the pile of books off the table – all in Arabic, they were meaningless to him, but he held each one upside down anyway, in case anything had been secreted between the pages. Nothing. And so he turned his attention to the cardboard boxes.
The room was littered with them – Joe counted fifteen in all. Three stood against the wall opposite the bed and window. He ripped them open. In the first he found nothing of interest – just old clothes, musty-smelling and crumpled. The second was more revealing. It contained a handgun – on examination he recognized it as a Glock 22 – along with a box of .40 S&W rounds. There was also money – not sterling, but a thick wad of Eritrean nakfa, bound together with a rubber band. Why did Ashkani have this currency? What were his links with Eritrea, that lawless land in East Africa that Joe knew was a sanctuary for AQ?
The third box contained the treasure.
The box itself was the smallest in the room – a 50cm cube. Its flaps were well sealed with packing tape, which meant that Joe had to rip through the cardboard to get inside. The first thing he pulled out was a newspaper: The Times. It took only a glance at the front page for Joe to see that it was the one that had his name, photo and crime plastered over the interior. He had no desire, or need, to read it again. In any case, he had already pulled out two DVDs in clear plastic cases. Each disc had been written on in black marker pen: the lettering was Arabic and Joe couldn’t understand it. And at the bottom of the box was a single sheet of A4 paper, on which was written, in a neat hand, a column of ten alphanumeric strings, followed by a three-letter code, followed by four digits. Joe only had to cast his eyes down the column once before realizing what they were.
Flight numbers. Airport codes. Take-off times.
‘Joe?’
Eva’s voice was weaker than ever.
‘Joe, I think we need to get to a hospital . . . Conor too . . .’