Sterling

by Robert Cameron

  As the surrounding countryside became more familiar, he knew he was nearly home. The fells of the Lake District came into view and Cam felt the urge to disappear into them. The sensation of isolation that could only be found when walking the hills always helped him clear his head. Maybe he could find time the following day to get out and about before he returned to work.

  The train slipped into the station at around two o’clock in the afternoon. Cam had some errands to run in the town, before he could head back to his cottage for a well-earned rest. Grabbing his bags he stepped down from the train on to the platform. The fresh country air filled his nose. Nice to be home.

  * * * * * * *

  Cam placed his bags in the boot of his car, which had been parked in one of the side streets near the station. One of the benefits of living in that area was that nobody took much notice of what was going on, and they didn’t seem to care. He locked the car and walked in the direction of the town centre.

  He knew that without the bag he would look less like the man who had left Birmingham earlier that day. He took a slightly longer route into town, making sure he was seen on the town’s few cameras. He used a cash machine and did some shopping – anything to show a presence in his home town. Again, he took some cash back at the supermarket checkout; force of habit. Besides, he would need to build up funds for his next outing.

  Wondering if his work had been discovered yet, he walked into the Fox and Hounds in the centre of town. Ordering a double whisky, he took a seat in view of the television and waited for the five o’clock news. Cam took every opportunity to watch the news; having no electricity in his house he had no TV and his only link to the outside world was his mobile phone, which he used to access the internet. It was great tool and he could have done with it during the last few days, but he knew he had to leave it at home as it would have been too easy to trace. Cam was amazed at what mobiles could do.

  Could it really be that nobody has found the body? He wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved. He finished his drink and got up to leave. Sliding the wooden chair under the table he stepped out on to the street. The sun had begun to set on a winter afternoon, and the streets were full of people making their way home from work. Cam put his hands in his pockets and pulled his collar up around his neck to protect himself from the winter air. As he walked down the road it felt as if the whole town was walking in the opposite direction, and he hunched his shoulders as he wove his way through the throngs of pedestrians. Cam always felt uncomfortable in large groups of people. The glow from the lamp posts, car headlights and the people moving past him seemed to blur together. He never felt more disconnected from society. ‘I’m different from all these people,’ he thought. ‘Not better – just different.’

  After ten or fifteen minutes’ driving, the car finally started to warm up. ‘I wonder if Mr and Mrs Crossley are in?’ They normally were. As he pulled into the long driveway he had a good view of the little country cottage. There she was in her usual place in the kitchen. She waved through the steamy glass as Cam locked his car. ‘Evening, Mrs Crossley.’ Cam waved as he approached his door. She was saying something.

  ‘I’ll pop round and see you tomorrow, Mrs Crossley,’ Cam mouthed in an exaggerated fashion.

  With the door shut behind him he realised he’d left his bags in the boot of his car. ‘Sod it!’ he thought. He turned and left his house. His local and favourite pub was about two miles’ walk away, in the nearest village. He liked the walk – it gave him time to think. Mrs Crossley was still waving as he walked into the darkness. Cam whispered through a clenched smile, ‘Crazy old lady!’

  His local was a proper old pub – it had that old pub smell, with wooden beams and a faint whiff of old tobacco from former times. Although he was known as a regular, people left him alone and there was just the normal small-talk.

  ‘Hi Cam, how’s things?’ said John the barman as Cam entered.

  ‘Same old, same old. And you?’ Cam replied.

  ‘Can’t complain – nobody would listen anyway.’

  ‘I know how that feels.’

  ‘How’s work been?’ asked John. Cam thought for a second.

  ‘Lost someone last night.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that, mate.’

  ‘Couldn’t be helped.’

  ‘What can I get you? Your usual?’

  ‘Let’s make it a double.’

  As he sipped his fourth double scotch he started to feel the distinct warmth of the alcohol starting to affect him. He’d watched the nine and ten o’clock news and still nothing. He was starting to suspect that something was going on. The body must have been found by now. Anyway, if he was heading for the fells the following day, he knew he had better call it a night. He stumbled off home, thinking through a fuzzy head, ‘Why?’

  Chapter 8

  Cam woke up with the light streaming through his curtains. He looked over at his phone; the screen showed that it was ten past nine. He felt refreshed and relished the prospect of a day out on the fells. The cottage felt cold – he had not had a fire lit in several days, but he wasn’t going to waste time fussing over domestic matters. As he collected his walking gear and packed it into a rucksack, he tryed to decide which set of hills to head for.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, he cut rough slices from a loaf. He found some sliced ham in the cupboard and sniffed it. Without a fridge all of his fresh food had to be subjected to the sniff-test. It passed, and he slapped some between the slices of bread. He bolted down some cereal, swigged a glass of orange juice and was ready to go.

  The small village of Braithwaite, in the middle of the national park, was at the foot of some of the greatest hills in the Lake District. Cam’s chosen route took him down Newlands Valley to the base of Causey Pike, then up to the peak, along the ridge and round on to Barrow.

  After a couple of hours he sat down among the rocks to eat his sandwiches, taking in the view. He had done the walk many times before, and it was always the scenery, rather than the strenuous ascent, that took his breath away; it never failed to impress him. Causey Pike reared up to his right while the valley lay to his left and in front of him, Derwent Water. A powerful roar broke the peace as two Air Force training jets snaked their way through the valley. Watching them disappear into the distance, Cam felt a twinge of envy.

  He hadn’t been a star pupil at school. He wasn’t unintelligent, but he simply hadn’t been academic. He wondered how his life would have turned out had he applied himself. He had many reasons to thank the military; they had made a man out of the boy. It was only when he had begun to gain qualifications in the army that he had realised he had a higher quotient of brain cells than he had imagined.

  The next day saw a return to normality with the start of a run of day-shifts. The weary night-crew went home and he checked over the ambulance with Nick. Once the daily checks had been completed they retired to the rest room and waited for a call. Nick talked about his family; he was devoted to them. The ambulance service shift pattern was demanding and probably didn’t dovetail too well with family life, Cam thought. As Nick rambled on, Cam nodded, with one eye and ear on the news.

  ‘Incredible… it’s like it never happened!’ he mused. Cam fully expected to be talking about a murder in Birmingham. Something must be going on; could it be getting covered up? Either by the Intelligence Services, or perhaps by Al Qa’eda? Maybe they think it was some kind of a hit by one of their own – some kind of inside job. The possibilities were endless. In a strange way he felt encouraged by the fact it was being ignored. He wondered if it was too soon to start planning the next one.

  The day ground on with nothing serious happening. They went to a call where an old lady had fallen over and couldn’t get herself up. She was an MS sufferer, living alone. She’d had to pull herself along the floor into the kitchen and from there she’d phoned for help. She wasn’t injur
ed – they’d simply had to get her to her feet and check her over. Cam sensed her loneliness. Jobs like that really got to him – more so than the stressful or traumatic ones. Sometimes he looked at people and it was as if he was holding up a mirror to his own future. The inevitability of old age scared him, whereas hunting down and eliminating a terrorist didn’t.

  He had to keep the momentum going. In just under two weeks time he had another four days off.

  * * * * * * *

  It was a wild night; Cam looked out of the window and poured himself a whisky. It was good to have the night off. The cottage was warm and now he had time to relax. Putting the half full glass down on the coffee table, he pulled out the scrabble box from the pile of board games. The heat from the fire warmed the side of his face as he sat on the sofa. He put his feet up on the table and took a sip of whisky. He opened the box and flicked through the files inside, looking for a name – the name of the next man who deserved to die.

  Abdul-Waajid Jabara, aged twenty-eight, was a recent inmate of Guantanamo Bay, released by the Americans and returned to his home soil of Bradford. He was released because the US Government had no evidence of his terrorist activities, however, in Cam’s documents he had a significant past. He was a known terrorist and a member of Al Qa’eda. Despite being born and raised in the UK, he had decided to turn on his native country. For some reason he had a hatred of the free world – but had no problem living in that freedom. He attended training camps in Pakistan and had his movements monitored in Afghanistan. Cam wondered how many British soldiers had been killed or injured in horrific ways because of him.

  But what had mostly made him a target for Cam, was that he was suing the British government for the time he spent in Guantanamo Bay, and for the torture he was subjected to while there. ‘Torture – they had no idea!’ If, or more likely when, he won, he would receive a million pounds in compensation. ‘This country is so weak,’ he thought, ‘we seem to allow them to walk all over us.’ Soldiers lost their limbs and could only expect to get a couple of hundred thousand pounds in compensation. They had to live the rest of their lives with a disability – two hundred thousand wouldn’t go far… but fight for the enemy and we are quite happy to reward you.

  The more Cam thought about this man, the more his blood boiled. ‘Where do they get the nerve to try this shit?! Do they truly believe they are entitled to compensation? What does it matter? I have the chance to put a stop to this.’ He would take pleasure in killing Jabara, and in two days time he would have his opportunity.

  Chapter 9

  The train was full, and Cam was starting to get agitated. Packed in like cattle, he could smell the people around him. He hated that smell – the unwashed hair and body odour that you couldn’t get out of your nose, no matter how hard you kept blowing air out of your nostrils. Still, there was only one more hour to go before he arrived in Bradford.

  He would have liked another opportunity to read over his notes, but that was not possible. The file stayed in his bag, which he kept at his feet. He had placed his leg through the strap to stop it going missing. He couldn’t risk losing that bag.

  He was not even allowed the chance to go over things in his mind as the passenger sitting next to him seemed to want to strike up a conversation. He was obviously one of those people who ignored the fact that, no matter how much they kept talking, no one was paying any attention. Random questions and unrelated topics appeared to flow out of him. Although Cam was getting annoyed, he had to admire the man – talking constantly for nearly two hours was quite a feat. Cam wondered if he would be so talkative if he knew the stranger he was irritating had a gun in his bag. As the subject changed again, Cam realised he was now talking about national identity cards.

  ‘Why should we be controlled like that?’ the man said. ‘It’s an invasion of our privacy. Just because the so-called British intelligence service can’t keep track of the terrorists, they want to keep us all under surveillance.’ Now he had Cam’s attention. ‘They can’t even protect us from home-grown terrorists. How many more times will there be bomb threats or, even worse, another attack like 7/7? They are just incompetent.’

  He had touched a nerve then!

  ‘I’m going to stop you there,’ Cam said, turning to face the man. He stared into his eyes. ‘Are you on Facebook?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about Twitter? Do you Tweet?’ asked Cam, with a hint of sarcasm and anger in his voice.

  ‘Yes I do, sometimes.’

  ‘So, let me get this straight. You are quite happy to put all your personal details on the Internet, update your exact location and what you are doing at every precise moment. However, you’re opposed to a simple thing like a national identity card – something that would improve the security of the nation.’ The man was at last speechless. Cam picked up his bag and pushed past him. He would prefer to stand for the remaining half an hour.

  As the train pulled into Bradford, Cam grabbed his holdall and, his rucksack on his back, he stepped off the train. He’d never been to Bradford before and something in the air of the place – or at least the area where Abdul-Waajid Jabara lived, displeased him.

  Those so-called ‘no-go areas’ in some towns and cities such as Bradford, angered Cam. They no longer resembled British streets; you could just as well be in some other country. There was a startling contrast between this place and Small Heath in Birmingham, where Cam’s first job had been. There they promoted the Muslim faith and improved their community, whereas in this part of Bradford they seemed only to want to let it fall into disrepair. He was walking on the outskirts of the suburb where Jabara lived and it looked like a slum or shantytown from some movie. If you were white and were unfortunate enough to live in that part of town, you would have to put up with constant wailing from the many mosques at all times of the day. The local infidels had grown to despise those calls to prayer. If only the Muslim inhabitants could integrate and refrain from being so assertive, perhaps they might be accepted. They appeared to enjoy pushing the buttons of the local people around them, who had to hide their own faith. Anything remotely Christian such as nativity plays and Easter had to be altered to be sensitive to other faiths. You couldn’t even fly the Union Flag outside your house in case you happened to offend someone. Cam wondered how political correctness could have turned into such a farce.

  Cam would need to move unnoticed at all times when in and around this part of town. Were he to be spotted he would look suspicious – white people were not welcome in that area. The authorities refuted the existence of no-go areas for whites in British cities, but it was plain to see that they were there. Looking around as he circled the derelict buildings, he wondered why any white person would want to go in there. It felt like a war in which they had lost territory. Cam didn’t like thinking of it in that way, but he couldn’t help it.

  He made his way through the back streets towards his accommodation – another small bed-and-breakfast where he could sleep and prepare. He could only enter the target area at night and couldn’t risk being seen. So, sleep during the day and work in the hours of darkness.

  * * * * * * *

  Cam’s eyes were shut. He could usually sleep anywhere, but that day, for some reason, it was different. The unknown element of the task was getting to him. Would he even be able to get near to the target’s house? He had mapped it out on a street plan, but if there were too many people, he might have to abort the operation altogether.

  His bag was packed and ready on the floor at the end of the bed. This time it was heavy – he didn’t have the luxury of knowing what would be needed, so he had to carry everything. ‘Travel light, move fast’ would have to wait for another time.

  He looked over at the alarm clock on the bedside cabinet, to check that it was still set for dusk. It only cost one pound, but that little clock had been everywhere with him. He’d had it years and it must have been rou
nd the world more than once. It’d travelled more than the average person and seen more war zones than any other bedside companion.

  As the hours ticked by he knew he had less and less time for sleep. It was three in the afternoon – only two hours left – and he was still wide awake. Cam tried to clear his mind and relax into the bed. Four o’clock – just one hour left. He tried the old trick of concentrating on relaxing his toes, then his ankles, shins, and knees, each in turn and so on, to see how far he could progress up his body before falling asleep. Looking over at the clock he saw that it was half four. Hardly any point in trying to sleep. Then he sank into a deep slumber.

  * * * * * * *

  ‘There will be two teams.’ The boss had his commanding voice on, meaning that either it was serious or there were other people watching.

  ‘Buzz and I will be with TFU 1, and Cam and Spike will be with TFU 2.’ They had only been in Gloucester for a few hours and they were already preparing to move in. This was unusually fast. Cam had been in the pub when his bleeper had gone off, and that only happened when the real deal was about to happen. Luckily he had only been on his first pint. He ran back from town and entered the team office to find everyone discussing the task that had been handed to them.

  A little over a year previously, a man called Richard Reid, a Muslim convert, had tried to blow up an aircraft with a shoe filled with explosives. He had dubbed himself ‘Richard Reid, the Shoe Bomber’. As luck would have it he was a bit of a lunatic and didn’t have any knowledge of explosives. Amateurs like him posed little or no threat to national security, but unfortunately, though, he had friends who did know what they were doing, and these two individuals had recently come to the attention of the police and Charlie Troop.

  ‘We will travel with our teams to the targets’ addresses and, together with the police, enter covertly and arrest the suspects.’ ‘Simple enough,’ Cam thought.