by Chris Ryan
Joe nodded. She was right. He looked across the room at her, then back to the contents of the box. ‘Give me two minutes,’ he said.
Clutching the two DVDs, he hurried downstairs again, barely glancing at the old lady as he ran into her front room. The red standby light of her television was on. He opened the white-painted cabinet beneath it to find an ancient VHS machine and a DVD player, both covered in dust and clearly seldom used. He switched on the DVD player and inserted the first of the two discs. Moments later he was staring at a black and white image on the screen with a sick, knotted feeling in his stomach.
He recognized Lancing Way at once, and the black Discovery that had pulled up in front of his own house. And, of course, he recognized himself stepping out of the car on the day he had returned from Bagram, his scruffy black beard still intact, his North Face bag slung over his shoulder. He stared in shock at the screen, trying to work out where the image had been shot from. From the angle he deduced that a camera must have been hidden on the first floor of the house directly opposite his, where old Mr Thompson lived by himself. He watched himself knock on his own front door before disappearing inside.
The screen went black.
His hands were trembling as he ejected the disc, proof positive that he’d been under surveillance and that Ashkani had at least had access to it, even if he hadn’t organized it. What would the second DVD show? He barely dared look. JJ’s house? Caitlin? Was his murdered, brutalized partner about to appear before his eyes?
He started the disc and, with his heart thumping, stepped back to watch it.
He did not see himself. He did not see Caitlin.
He saw a dead man talking.
Thin, Middle Eastern, with a grey-streaked beard and wearing a simple, plain dishdash and a white headdress.
The nose was pronounced. The lips were slightly apart. The forefinger of his right hand was held aloft, but he was looking down, as if reading from some text that was out of shot.
The last time Joe had seen this man, he’d been shrouded in a body bag, carried by two SEALs through a compound in Pakistan towards a waiting Black Hawk. Now he lived again on this television screen.
The footage was grainy and shaky – clearly taken on a handheld camera, or even a mobile phone – but Osama bin Laden’s voice was clear enough. He spoke in Arabic, calm and measured, but whoever had made this video had intended it for English-speakers, because at the bottom of the screen were some amateurish subtitles in gaudy white letters. Rage rising in his gut, Joe read the words as the voice of bin Laden filled that quiet, dark room:
‘People of America and Britain, I address my words to you all. I begin by telling you that, although your governments spend more money on wars against the people of Allah, who built the heavens and the earth in justice, than . . .’
The screen crackled and blurred for a moment, then grew sharp again.
‘. . . once more we have shown that it is not within your power to stop the brave ones whose purpose is holy Jihad. It was on September 11 that nineteen young men were able to bring fire and death to America. And on May 11 we will have done it once more . . .’
The sick feeling in Joe’s stomach intensified. Suddenly only half his mind was on the screen. The other half was calculating today’s date.
‘. . . the infidels will be brought from the skies in balls of flame . . . None of you are safe . . .’
He’d got it wrong. Surely he’d got it wrong . . .
‘. . . know that His law is retaliation in kind. The killers will be killed . . . whoever obeys Him will enter the Garden, whoever disobeys Him will be refused . . . by the will of the Prophet my people can strike you down with ease . . .’
The screen went blank. Joe continued to stare at it for a handful of seconds.
He hadn’t got it wrong. The eleventh of May was today.
Joe was on his feet and hurtling up the stairs three at a time. As he burst into the bedroom he startled Eva. Conor was still motionless on the bed. Joe strode over to the cardboard box that had contained the DVDs and grabbed the A4 sheet again. He scanned down it: the first five flight numbers were adjacent to airport codes that he recognized: Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Edinburgh, Belfast. The following five were American: Portland, San Diego, Minnesota, Detroit, Chicago.
He checked the flight times. All the UK flights were scheduled to leave at or around 1000 hours, the US flights any time between five and seven hours earlier local time, because of the time differences.
Ten planes. All in the air at the same time.
A video of bin Laden, clearly recorded before the raid in Pakistan, gloating about a fucking spectacular to take place today.
‘What time is it?’ Joe breathed still staring at the piece of paper in his shaking fist.
Eva didn’t answer.
‘What’s the fucking time?’ he yelled. He spun round, to see Eva’s pale face looking warily at him. Conor had started to cry. Joe rushed over to the other side of the room, grabbed Eva’s wrist and looked at her watch: 0744 hours. Two hours and sixteen minutes. Could he get to one of the airports on the list in that time? Not a fucking chance.
‘Joe, what’s wrong?’
He didn’t answer. Not immediately. His mind was turning over. ‘Where’s your phone?’ he said.
With obvious pain, Eva pushed herself to her feet and pulled her phone from her pocket. Joe grabbed it.
No service.
‘Fuck!’ he hissed.
‘What is it?’ Eva groaned. She’d collapsed back down onto the bed and was holding her wound. Joe found himself clutching his hair. Everything was spinning. He didn’t know what to do . . . ‘Joe, what is it?’
Words started to spill out of him. ‘There’s a terrorist plot. Ten planes, flight times 1000 hours UK time. They’ll all be in the air at once. Ashkani’s behind it.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I just know!’ Joe roared.
Eva looked stricken. ‘What about security? I mean, it’s impossible, isn’t it, to get explosives on-board a plane nowadays? All the checks . . . How are they doing it?’
Joe put a lid on his exploding temper. ‘Could be anything,’ he hissed. ‘Maybe the fucking pilots are involved . . . or the baggage handlers. I don’t know. If some fucker wants to blow themselves up . . .’ He was pacing up and down, feeling like he was being ripped apart. He had to do something, warn someone. But who would listen to him? The whole fucking world thought he was unhinged and dangerous. An anonymous call would be ignored. He didn’t know how the strike was going to happen, and he couldn’t reach any of the airports in time.
And – he looked over his shoulder at Conor and Eva – he needed to be here.
‘You have to go,’ Eva said.
He blinked at her.
‘I mean it, Joe. You have to go now.’ She winced as she spoke, and clutched her side again. ‘I’ll be fine. I can look after Conor . . .’
‘You’re too weak.’
She stood up again. It was clearly an immense effort.
‘Ten planes, Joe,’ she whispered. ‘How many lives is that? Hundreds? Thousands? How many more people are you going to let him kill?’
The question hung in the air between them. And Joe knew she was right. He nodded and crossed to the other side of the room. The Glock was still in its box. Almost as a reflex, he clicked out the magazine, then loaded and locked it. ‘You know how to use this thing?’ he asked.
Eva nodded, but when she took the weapon from him, she held it tentatively, like an amateur.
‘You won’t need it,’ Joe said. ‘We’re in a safe house. I don’t think anybody except Ashkani knows about this place.’ He looked over at Conor. ‘Take care of him,’ he said.
‘What are you going to do?’
Joe narrowed his eyes. The answer to that question wasn’t even clear in his own mind.
‘Anonymous tip-offs are no good,’ he said. ‘They get hundreds a day, and without knowing how they’re getting their explosives on
-board . . .’ He closed his eyes. ‘I can’t turn myself in – nobody will listen to me. And I can’t get to any of those airports, which means I can’t get anywhere near the target flights.’
Eva couldn’t stop the panic rising in her face. ‘But if you can’t persuade anyone to ground these ten flights . . .’ she breathed, ‘what can you do?’
Joe opened his eyes again. A sudden calm had descended on him. Like in the old days, before an op. Everything was clear. He knew what he had to do.
‘Joe?’
‘Give me your watch.’
She obliged and he looked at it: 0746 hours. Two hours and fourteen minutes to go. Joe put the watch on his wrist and opened his shoulder bag. The Galil .308 was there, separated into its component parts. Lurking at the bottom was the ammo he had confiscated from the scene: the match-grade rounds that had been loaded into the weapon, but also a small box of HE incendiary rounds. Overkill – literally – for taking out an individual, but for what Joe had in mind . . .
‘Joe?’
If he couldn’t ground the planes in danger, there was only one other option open to him. To ground every plane – both sides of the Atlantic. Full stop.
‘Don’t let go of the gun. Keep an eye on Conor. I’ll be back.’
Without another word, Joe raced from the room, down the stairs and out of the house. The motorbike was back with the Range Rover. They were parked two klicks away. If he pushed himself, he could cover the distance in five or six minutes. He sprinted, spurred on by the certain knowledge that if he failed, bin Laden’s curtain call would be complete.
Hundreds of people would die.
Time was not on his side.
TWENTY-ONE
0800 hours.
The motorbike was still lying where Joe had left it after returning to Eva, on its side by the Range Rover in the small car park opposite the church. The helmet, lying next to the vehicle, was soaked with dew. Joe’s muscles were burning as he hauled it up from its hiding place. His dirty clothes were drenched with sweat. Tightening the straps of the rucksack over his back, he pulled on the helmet, started the engine and screeched past the Range Rover into the road.
As Joe roared down the deserted lanes, the speedometer topped eighty even on sharp bends, which he hugged tightly. Hedgerows and fields were nothing but blurs in the corner of his eyes. There were still patches of early-morning mist compromising his visibility as he cut through them. All his attention was on the road ahead. The wind cut through him, sticking his sweat-soaked clothes to his clammy skin, and before long he was very cold. He knew he should stop and move around. He vaguely tried to remember when he had last eaten. All he could do, though, was drive, and drive as hard and as fast as the bike would go.
The jagged form of the Galil in his rucksack dug into his back. It was comforting. Although he knew that if he was pulled over, the presence of such a weapon would be enough to get him arrested, at least he had the tool he needed to deal with the police. Because his word wouldn’t be enough to ground so much as a paper dart. Disgraced and discredited, he was going to have to be rather more persuasive. And there weren’t many things more persuasive than an incendiary .308.
The miles disappeared. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. The small, winding roads grew wider and straighter. There was more traffic now. Time check: 0832. He pulled out to overtake a trundling Eddie Stobart lorry and immediately his eyes and ears were filled with the sound of another truck thundering towards him from the opposite direction, twenty metres and closing, its horn blaring. Joe yanked the bike back over to the left, just in time. The truck powered past him, the slipstream knocking him slightly off balance. He pulled out again. This time the road was clear. Opening the throttle, he overtook Eddie Stobart, passing under an overhead sign as he did so. Cardiff: seventy-five miles.
He did a quick calculation. A hundred and twenty-five miles to go. He hunkered down to reduce wind resistance and increase speed.
0900 hours.
It was cold in the house, but that wasn’t the only reason Eva shivered. The pain was getting worse. The wound in her side was too sore to touch, and though she wanted to take a look, the idea of removing Joe’s hastily applied dressing was more than she could bear. If only she could stop herself shaking as she sat on the edge of the bed, the handgun gripped tight in her fist. She didn’t know why she was still trembling. She and Conor were alone, weren’t they?
She looked at the door. It was open just a couple of inches. Fighting the pain, she eased herself up and moved towards it, stepping round the Arabic books that Joe had swept onto the floor.
She stopped suddenly.
The door was opening.
Shaking even more, Eva raised the gun. A cat miaowed, then appeared in the doorway. Eva dropped her hand in relief, hissed the cat away, then lurched to the door. She closed it and turned the key. It wouldn’t help much, but she felt safer.
With her back to the door, she surveyed the room. It was chaotic. Not so much a bedroom, she thought, as a storeroom.
Her eyes fell on Conor. He hadn’t moved since Joe had left. How long had it been? Half an hour? An hour? She limped back to the bed and perched by the boy’s small, motionless body.
She found herself grinding her teeth. Complex, conflicting thoughts troubled her. She realized she’d been avoiding looking at Conor. Joe’s little boy. Caitlin’s little boy. She realized, in a moment of honesty, that she was jealous. Eva had never thought of herself as the maternal type, but maybe that was just her way of protecting herself. Whatever the truth, the kid needed her help.
‘Conor?’ she whispered. ‘Conor, sweetheart, are you OK?’
No answer. She stroked his lower leg gently.
She winced suddenly as a stabbing pain seared out from her wound. She clenched her teeth again as she mastered it. Then, very gently, she pulled the coat to cover the boy properly. He was still hugging himself, and although he wasn’t moving, his eyes were wide open, staring without expression. Did he know where he was, or who he was with? Eva thought not. She could see Joe in him – something in the eyes – and she remembered him when he was Conor’s age. Quiet and serious, but stockier, less frail. But then he’d never had to go through what Conor had gone through. She stroked his calf again. He was so thin. There was barely any flesh on him. Had Ashkani given him anything to eat? She doubted it. Why would he, when he wanted to keep him compliant in the hours leading up to his death?
‘Are you hungry, sweetheart?’
No response.
Eva chewed on her lower lip. ‘I’m going to go downstairs, find you something to eat.’
Silence.
Descending the stairs, clutching the banister so hard that her knuckles went white, was among the most painful things she’d ever done and by the time she reached the ground floor she was gasping in agony. Even though it was fully light outside, it was gloomy in this shabby hallway, and just as gloomy in the kitchen. All the cupboard doors were open – Eva vaguely remembered that Joe had come downstairs to fetch water – but there was no food. Just mouldy bread and tins of Whiskas, and they hadn’t been reduced to that yet.
A noise at the front door. She stopped dead.
Her pulse thudded in her ears. But there was no other sound. She crept out of the kitchen, doing all she could to ignore the stabbing pains in her side, holding her breath, clutching the gun.
The hallway was undisturbed, the door shut. She took another few paces.
There were letters lying on the doormat. They hadn’t been there before. With a surge of hope, she struggled to the door, fumbled desperately with the latch and opened it. A red mail van was pulling back onto the road – thirty metres away.
Help.
Eva stumbled outside and waved her hands in the air. She tried to shout, but lacked the strength for more than a feeble croak.
‘Don’t go . . .’ she whispered. ‘Please don’t . . .’
But moments later the van was gone. All was silent, and they were alone again.
It was e
verything she could do to stop despair from overcoming her. She wanted to hammer her fists against the cold stone walls of the house. Think of Conor, she told herself. He needs you. She stepped back inside, closed the door and hobbled up the stairs again.
The boy hadn’t moved. She had to do something for him. She couldn’t just sit here, getting weaker and weaker and worrying about whether Joe had managed to raise the alarm. The wild look in his eyes as he left had lingered with her. She pushed from her mind the idea that he wasn’t in control.
Joe had said this was Ashkani’s safe house. Surely he would have food here – something the boy could eat. She stared helplessly at the boxes on the floor. There were so many of them. Where to start?
The largest boxes were the two to the right of the wardrobe. They were sealed with so much packing tape that it took her two or three minutes just to open the first one. It was only half full with toiletries: shaving gel, razors, toothbrushes, everything Ashkani might need to take care of himself. The second box was filled with a bewildering array of medicines, most of them with long names Eva did not recognize. She emptied both of them onto the floor, hoping to find something to eat hidden among the bottles and boxes. There was nothing. She spotted a box of codeine and swallowed a couple of tablets. She didn’t know if it would do any good for the splintering pain in her side, but it couldn’t harm her.
Which box to try next?
It was a smaller one that caught her eye. The bizarre thought came to her that it looked like the box in her attic that was full of baubles for the Christmas tree she decorated every year. She limped over to it, knelt on the floor and started picking at the packing tape with her broken nails. As she tore off the tape, the top layer of cardboard came with it.
When she saw what was inside, she held her breath.
The box was brimful of ammunition. Eva had received very little firearms training, but she recognized the magazines full of rounds and the neat little packs of plastic explosive. There were wires and battery packs and even four small canisters that looked like grenades. Sitting on top of all this equipment, however, was something that perplexed her.