Osama

by Chris Ryan

The captain’s voice came over the Tannoy again: ‘Cabin crew, engage the emergency chutes. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand clear of the aisle to allow . . .’

  Nobody was listening. Passengers were already rushing towards the emergency exits, even though they hadn’t been opened yet. From the rear of the plane two members of the cabin crew tried to push themselves down towards the centre, passing the sweating Middle Eastern man and his two neighbours, who had got to their feet and were trying to squeeze past him. The man angled his legs to the right, allowing them into the aisle to follow in the wake of the cabin crew.

  And only then, as the other passengers scrambled for the exits, and the blue neon of the emergency vehicles flashed in through the windows of the aircraft, did the man remove his mobile phone from his pocket. His hands were shaking, his brow a sea of sweat. He felt detached from the noise and hysteria of the rest of the cabin as the emergency chutes opened. He felt at peace. He looked over his right shoulder. From here he could see, in the cabin crew’s service area, the metal food trolley. It was no more than three metres away.

  He switched on the phone. It took thirty seconds to power up.

  Half the passengers had alighted now. The man could hear harsh voices shouting instructions somewhere outside and although he could not make out what they were saying, he knew he didn’t have much time.

  The cabin was almost empty now. The harsh voices grew more distinct. He could understand them: ‘Get away from the aircraft! Get away from the aircraft!’

  He activated Bluetooth. The phone started to search for nearby devices.

  He was muttering again. This time his words were not silent, but formed the dull drone of a whispered prayer. The harsh voices were closer. They were in the cabin and were shouting not at the passengers who had, he estimated, all disembarked, but at each other: ‘Rows A to F, clear! Rows M to S, clear!’

  His prayer continued. Still seated, he couldn’t see the newcomers, but he could sense one of them drawing closer. They would shoot him on sight, of course. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck as he stared at his phone.

  New device found.

  He sensed the approaching man stop. How far away was he? Five metres? A little more?

  Device connected.

  Had the newcomer seen the man still sitting in his seat? Had he worked out something was wrong?

  He had only to press a button now, and his phone would detonate the Semtex stashed in the meals on the food trolley.

  Then the man heard the newcomer’s voice. ‘Evacuate the aircraft! Evacuate! Now!’

  The time had come. He would take at least one person with him.

  He closed his eyes, raised his face to heaven, and pressed the button on his phone.

  Mason Delaney prided himself on his ability to read a man’s face. But he didn’t need much skill to realize that something was going wrong. One look at General Sagan’s expression was enough for that. The man’s leathery skin had turned several shades paler; his brow was furrowed.

  ‘What is it, Herb?’ Delaney asked quietly. And then: ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’m getting word from Tampa,’ Sagan breathed.

  Delaney closed his eyes. ‘What?’

  ‘They’ve located the bottles.’

  Delaney could feel his fat neck pressing against his tight collar. ‘And?’

  But Sagan was holding up one finger, listening intently to his headset. ‘Boston, Orlando, Cincinnati, Philly . . . same goddamn story.’

  Suddenly Delaney was on his feet, clutching the edge of the table. His mouth hardly moved as he spoke. ‘What story, Herb?’

  The general stared at him. ‘They’ve isolated all the passengers, they’ve located the bottles and they’ve done preliminary tests on the contents.’ He blinked. ‘Shampoo,’ he said. ‘They all contain shampoo.’

  Delaney felt as if the blood was draining from his veins.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What the hell do you think I mean, Mason? Goddamn it, I thought you said your information was—’

  But at that moment the door swung open. Scott Stroman appeared. He was out of breath and his eyes were slightly wild. He looked awkwardly over at Sagan, then at his boss. ‘Sir, we’ve just had word from the Federal Aviation Administration.’

  ‘What? What?’

  ‘All US and UK flights grounded, sir. There’s been an explosion at Heathrow, but the British were pre-warned.’ He looked over at Sagan again, before taking another deep breath. ‘They were also pre-warned about five strikes on US soil, sir.’

  Delaney fell back into his seat. A chill wind was blowing through the room. ‘They had the same information as us?’

  But Stroman was shaking his head. ‘We’ve been misled, sir. The explosives . . .’

  ‘Where?’ Delaney whispered.

  ‘Semtex, sir. In the in-flight meals.’

  Sagan was looking between them, his expression somewhere between confusion and suspicion. ‘What the hell’s going on, Mason?’ he demanded, a dangerous edge to his voice.

  But Delaney didn’t answer. Not immediately. For a full ten seconds he sat stunned.

  Then he stood up and walked over to Stroman. When he finally spoke, it was in a low hiss that only his white-faced assistant could hear.

  ‘Find him,’ he said.

  ‘Sir?’ Stroman asked.

  ‘Find Ashkani! Now!’

  TWENTY-THREE

  Mahmood Ashkani was staring at the sky, awaiting the moment when Flight BA729 from London to Dublin entered his line of sight.

  His laptop was open on the car seat beside him, its sat-phone connection to the internet established. He had chosen his viewing point with precision. At 1013 hours the British Airways flight would be in this airspace. And at that moment he would see it fall from the heavens. Only when he had verified, with his own eyes, that the strike had been successful, would he upload the footage to YouTube. No doubt it would be taken down within minutes, but that would be ample time for bin Laden’s taunt to go viral across the world.

  Eight minutes past ten. He thought of Delaney. His handler, the man he had been playing like a finely tuned instrument, would know by now that something was wrong. And when the planes started dropping from American airspace as well as British, he would finally understand the extent of Ashkani’s deception. He wished he could see Delaney’s pasty face when he realized what he’d done.

  Eleven minutes past. He thought of Joe Mansfield. He thought of how desperate Delaney had been to eliminate him and how much effort he, Ashkani, had put into the job. Mansfield could have ruined everything.

  Twelve minutes past.

  The sky overhead was clear. He took a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles from his jacket and put them on.

  Thirteen minutes past. There was nothing in the sky except a flock of seagulls heading for the coast.

  Ashkani breathed deeply, trying to keep a lid on his sudden unease. Perhaps there had been a delay.

  Two minutes went by. Three. The sky remained empty of aircraft.

  Ashkani glanced down at his laptop. It was all ready. He simply needed to press a button. But he could not do it. Not until he was sure . . .

  He opened a new Firefox window and, typing meticulously with his two forefingers, navigated to Heathrow’s departures page. And as his eyes fell upon the list of flights, his slow, careful breathing suddenly became irregular. Each flight on the page was followed by a single word.

  ‘Cancelled’.

  Ashkani stared at the page, and back at the sky. Then, in a sudden burst of anger, he ripped the phone from the laptop and hurled it to the floor by the empty seat. He stared at himself in the rear-view mirror for thirty seconds, his mind full of the explosions he could not see, trying to straighten his head and formulate a new strategy.

  He was exposed. His cover was blown. By now Delaney would know that he had been double-crossing him, and Ashkani had nothing to show for it. But that didn’t change what he had to do right now: disappear. Quickly. Compl
etely.

  But first he had to cover his tracks. His mind wandered. He saw an isolated house and the dead body of an old woman at the bottom of the stairs. He saw a room filled with incriminating evidence.

  He started the engine, performed a three-point turn, and began driving back the way he had come.

  Both Eva’s body and mind were numb.

  She had watched the clock tick relentlessly past ten.

  Ten past.

  Twenty past.

  She couldn’t move. She could barely think. Her gunshot wound was terrible, but the state of her head, filled with images of burning aircraft and screaming children, was worse. She had no other thoughts.

  Her body temperature dropped. Coloured blotches appeared in front of her eyes. She was vaguely aware of the clock. Ten twenty-eight.

  Conor.

  The thought was like a shot of adrenalin. She had forgotten him. Eva shook her head clear of the mist that was clouding her thoughts, and winced as a burning sensation shot through her trunk. Her breath had caused condensation on the inside of the windscreen and to lean forward and wipe it off with her sleeve was so painful that she gasped.

  And she gasped a second time when she saw a grey Peugeot speed by in the opposite direction. The car passed in a flash. But she’d had enough time to see the face of the man at the wheel: the hooked nose, the dark skin and hair, even the slight hunch in his shoulders.

  The same man she had seen just days before in Barfield, and whose photograph had since stared out of computer screens and been burned into her brain.

  But he was dead. Joe had shot him. Hadn’t he?

  Within seconds Eva was swinging the Range Rover round, ignoring the stress the movement placed on her side. Ahead there was a bend to the right, and the Peugeot was out of view. She stamped on the accelerator and the car screamed through the automatic gears as she gripped the steering wheel and peered through the windscreen still half obscured by moisture.

  Three minutes later she was speeding past the car park where they had stopped the previous night and surging over the brow of the hill. The sea appeared, about two kilometres in the distance, and between the top of the hill and the coast, about 250 metres inland, was the solitary house. Eva didn’t slow down. As the vehicle jolted over the hill she felt another hot jab of pain in her side, but she also saw, maybe a mile along the road that snaked out ahead, the Peugeot. It had taken a left at a fork in the road. There was no doubt about it: it was heading for the house.

  Eva trod down hard, her face set in an expression of fierce concentration. A minute or two later the house was just thirty metres ahead. She barely slowed down as she entered the driveway, and came to a noisy, skidding halt a car’s length from the front door.

  Silence.

  The Peugeot was parked five metres to her right, at an angle that suggested its driver had also come to an abrupt stop. Sweating now, Eva fumbled for the handgun Joe had left her with, quietly opened the door and stepped outside.

  There was no sign of Ashkani. She found herself gripping the weapon hard, resting it on her left forearm, which was raised in front of her. She felt faint, and worried that she would pass out any moment. She couldn’t prevent her footsteps crunching a little on the gravel as she covered the three metres to the door. It was ajar – just an inch – so she prodded it gently with her right foot, keeping her weapon raised.

  The entrance hall was murky and quiet. No sign of anyone. It looked just as it had when she had left. She listened hard – no sound – and as she stepped inside she quickly checked left and right that there was nobody waiting to jump her.

  Nothing.

  Lightly pushing the door shut behind her, she crept across the hallway to the bottom of the stairs. Her weapon was pointing upwards now. The door of the bedroom where she had left Conor was wide open. Was that how she’d left it? She couldn’t remember.

  The treads creaked as she ascended – each pace sent a tremor through her. By the time she reached the top of the stairs she was gulping for air.

  She paused, gritting her teeth. Then she inhaled deeply several times and lunged into the room.

  It was empty.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she breathed. ‘Conor . . .’

  She limped across the room to the bed where he had been lying. The indentation of his little body was still there, and the coat that had covered him was lying over the open box in which she had found the airline meal tray. But there was no sign of Conor.

  She turned.

  Otherwise the room was just as she had left it: full of boxes, the books still lying on the floor. She blinked. There was something on the table that hadn’t been there before. She took a step towards it; her eyes lingered on a plain black laptop and, lying squared up on top of it, a small, leather-bound book. On the cover it said: ‘Holy Koran’.

  A sound from the corner of the room sent a jolt through her veins. Instinctively she pointed her gun at the wardrobe. It was open just a fraction. Hadn’t it been open wide when she left?

  She edged round the table, her weapon still primed, and, treading lightly, covered the three metres between herself and the cupboard. Taking a deep, slow breath, she eased the wardrobe door open with the gun barrel.

  Pale, frightened eyes looked up at her.

  Conor was crouched in one corner, his knees pulled up to his chest.

  There was a mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door. Eva caught a glimpse of her face. It was corpse-white. She tried to smile at the little boy; to pretend that she was not as scared as him. She held out her free hand and took one of his. It felt surprisingly warm.

  ‘Let’s go, sweetheart,’ she breathed. ‘Don’t be scared . . . let’s go.’

  Conor climbed out of the wardrobe, his little hand clutching Eva’s. The timber frame groaned, but then all was silent as he stood next to her and looked up for reassurance. Eva gave him another weak smile, then led him to the bedroom door.

  She stopped and listened.

  Silence.

  They couldn’t walk down the stairs two abreast, because the stairlift took up too much space. Eva went first, walking down into the dim hallway, her right hand in front of her clutching the gun, her left hand behind holding Conor’s. The stairs creaked, but once they reached the bottom, everything was deathly quiet once again.

  Eva bent down so that her lips were inches from Conor’s ear. ‘My car’s out the front, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘It’s the black one. As soon as we’re outside, we’ll run straight for it. Do you understand?’

  Conor was staring at the door.

  ‘Do you understand, Conor?’

  He nodded.

  Eva straightened up and they started to cross the hallway.

  A noise behind them. Eva spun round and peered through the gloom.

  Nothing.

  She could feel Conor squeezing her hand a little harder as they covered the remaining three or four metres to the door.

  ‘Ready?’ she mouthed silently.

  Conor nodded.

  She opened the door.

  And screamed.

  He was there. Standing in the doorway, his shoulders bent, his head slightly bowed, strands of black hair straggling over his menacing eyes. Ashkani moved with sickening speed, grabbing her wrist and slamming it against the frame with such force that the gun flew from her grasp as she pushed Conor back towards the stairs.

  He let go of her wrist and quickly bent down to pick up the weapon. Eva seized her chance to run. Conor was already racing back up the stairs. Eva limped after him, arriving at the bottom step just as Conor reached the top and disappeared into the bedroom again.

  She didn’t have to look over her shoulder to see Ashkani coming after her. She could sense his approach and expected any moment to either hear gunfire or feel the chill of a hand on her shoulder. Pounding up the stairs, she ignored the stabs of agony that streaked through her side, and tried not to let the sound of his footsteps behind her freeze her muscles into inaction.

  At the top of t
he stairs she glanced back. He was just five steps behind her, and he was smiling. Eva hurled herself into the bedroom and slammed the door shut. Her shaking fingers felt for the key in the lock; just as she attempted to turn it, she saw the doorknob twist. She threw herself against the thick wooden door and wrenched the key to lock it.

  Conor was back on the bed, huddled up against the window. Eva limped to the nearest cardboard box and dragged it with difficulty against the door, not sure that it would make any difference.

  A sudden thump felt like it went right through her. The door rattled. She froze.

  Another thump. The door rattled again.

  And a third.

  As she ran to get another cardboard box she flinched at the sound of a fourth strike against the door. She dragged the box up against the first, then stood back.

  The thumping had stopped. She felt a moment of relief that quickly morphed into more panic. She could hear footsteps descending the stairs. Staring at the door, ice in her veins, she tried to work out what exactly Ashkani was doing.

  He was prepared. A safe house wasn’t safe unless, when you left it, you could easily remove all traces of your existence.

  Having descended the stairs two steps at a time, he hurried through the kitchen at the rear of the house and out the back door. Mrs Jones’s garden, which faced the sea, was neglected. On occasion he had tended it as part of his strategy to keep the foolish old woman compliant, but over the months that he had used this house as a base, he’d also been careful to take advantage of the prefab concrete garage at the side. How well he knew from Mrs Jones that ‘her’ Gethin had erected this ugly thing with his bare hands, and one look inside was enough to confirm that the old woman had barely ventured into it in the years since her husband’s death. It was thick with dust and spiders’ webs; most of the floorspace was taken up by an ancient green Morris Minor with flat tyres, and along the far wall were four large, red metal cans. He seized one and shook it. It gave off the thick, greasy stench of petrol.

  The cans were all full, and with some difficulty he carried two at once. He went back into the house with them, leaving one in the hallway and taking the second through to the front room where Mrs Jones’s body lay mouldering. He undid the cap and sprinkled the petrol first over her body, then over the sofa and surrounding carpet, before heading to the tall windows and dousing the base of the curtains and the carpet beneath them. Back in the hallway, he looked up: the door upstairs was still shut. Having seen the terror on that woman’s face, he knew it would remain shut. Smiling to himself, he carried the second can halfway up the stairs, opened it and allowed the petrol to gush over the threadbare carpet and trickle down into the hallway.