Abdul al-Hussain held up a hand as the door opened and the café proprietor brought in a tray of drinks and some finger food. He waited until the man had disappeared again before responding.
‘How many of our men survived?’
‘None,’ Nagi said, tearing off a piece of flatbread and popping it in his mouth.
The news didn’t seem to faze the warlord, his face remaining impassive.
‘That is unfortunate.’
Nagi nodded his agreement. ‘With a little further training, they might have been victorious. It is just a shame that this virus doesn’t give them added intelligence. They followed the combat manoeuvres exactly as they had been shown, it was just that the decision-making was lacking.’
‘I will ensure that is addressed,’ al-Hussain promised. ‘And speaking of which… you need to contact your CIA handler.’
‘Of course. What should I tell him?’
‘That fifty men will attack forward operating base Vincent in three days’ time.’
‘And will they?’ Nagi asked. ‘I’m sure I am getting very close to losing the American’s trust. Leading his men into one trap is something I can explain away, but two in a row? At the very least it would put an end to our relationship.’
‘Fear not. The attack will take place at two o’clock on Saturday morning. It has been planned for some time. The men who will launch the assault have been training hard these last few days, and I will send one of my most experienced soldiers to lead them.’
Nagi took a sip of tea. ‘If they fight half as well as our men did last night, then a great victory awaits us.’
‘Inshallah.’
* * *
John Balmer stormed into Durden’s office without knocking. The CIA operative didn’t flinch as the door slammed against the wall, then bounced back to softly click closed.
‘What the fuck is Sentinel playing at?’
‘I wish I knew,’ Durden said, gesturing for Balmer to take a seat.
The master sergeant remained standing. ‘What the hell does that mean? You’re supposed to be running this guy. Are you telling me you don’t trust him?’
‘No intel is ever going to be a hundred per cent accurate,’ Durden said. ‘We act on what we consider to be reliable. And up to now, Sentinel has delivered.’
‘Yeah, that fucker just delivered two of my men to the hospital!’
‘So I heard,’ Durden grimaced. ‘How are they doing?’
‘They’ll live. Tell me, the SAS patrol that got hit…. did that intel come from Sentinel?’
Durden shifted in his seat and the look on his face answered Balmer’s question for him.
‘You mean he caused the death of four good men, and you still believe he’s on our side?’
‘There’s no proof that he lied to us,’ Durden said defensively. ‘There wasn’t enough information available to prove that it was an ambush.’
‘You’re telling me the patrol tripped an IED and there just happened to be twenty Taliban cruising by? Are you fucking serious?’
‘Stranger things have happened. I have to make judgement calls, and perhaps I might have got this one wrong.’
‘Might have?’ Balmer growled, furious with the civilian. One thing he despised was people who were happy to sit behind a desk and send his men into harm’s way. The officers did it, but at least many of them had seen action themselves. They wouldn’t take unnecessary risks with the lives of the soldiers under their command.
Durden raised his hands. ‘Okay, I made a bad call. But if it had been a genuine shipment and we let the weapons fall into the hands of the Taliban, many more could have been killed as a result. I was just looking at the bigger picture.’
‘Well, picture this: you leaning over that desk while Sentinel is fucking you in the ass! Because that’s what I see!’
‘Not anymore,’ Durden said. ‘I won’t know for sure until I speak to him, but if he hasn’t got a damn fine excuse, he’s out.’
‘Out as in he walks away?’
‘Give me credit. If he is playing us and we let him get away with it, we’ll have hundreds of them knocking on the door offering to sell themselves. No, we’d need to make an example of him.’
‘If it comes to that,’ Balmer said, ‘I’m your man.’
‘Yours was the second name that came into my head. The Brits deserve first crack.’
Balmer couldn’t argue with that. While his team had suffered two relatively minor injuries, the SAS had lost an entire patrol, with two of their men still unaccounted for. It was only right that they should be the ones to give Sentinel what was coming to him.
‘So, tell me about the ambush,’ Durden said. ‘Captain Bridges gave me a brief heads-up, but no details.’
Some of Balmer’s anger had dissipated at the thought of Sentinel getting what he deserved, but he was still a little pissed at Durden for not being more diligent.
‘We counted thirty—all of them early twenties or younger. But they fought like pros. I think Dagher’s virus is in play. We brought back a blood sample, just to be sure. It’s with the Captain.’
‘Good work,’ Durden told him. ‘If we can confirm that suspicion, I’ll need you to give us a full briefing.’
‘I’ll have something prepared by—’
Durden’s phone rang, cutting Balmer short.
‘Durden… aha… yeah… no… okay, but not over the phone. We have to meet. The same place as last time. Two hours.’
He ended the call and looked at Balmer. ‘Speak of the devil. Sentinel has news about an attack planned for this weekend. I’m going to see him.’
Balmer puffed a smarmy laugh from his nostrils.
‘I’ll inform Gray. He can go with you, or tag along close behind.’
‘No need. We’re not going to get this done today. Don’t worry. If he’s not on the level, he’ll pay for it.’
Chapter 19
The nearby village of Karz was bristling with a mixture of US and Afghan troops, giving Lance Durden a little comfort about being beyond the safety of the camp gates. Although he’d been in country for some time—since before 9/11 and the start of the war on terror—he wasn’t naïve enough to believe that he wouldn’t be a valuable target for the local warlords. A couple of years earlier he would have walked these streets without fear. But following the Western invasion he might as well have painted a target on his forehead. In recent months he’d mainly restricted himself to camp, but this wasn’t something he could do over the phone.
He told the private behind the wheel to park the pool car by the kerb opposite a grain store and then walked thirty yards down the street to the café. By the time he got inside, his cotton shirt was forming wet patches.
Sentinel was already waiting.
‘Can I get you anything?’ Farhad Nagi asked.
Durden sat down opposite him and shook his head. ‘What the hell happened last night? I almost lost eight men.’ He took out a handkerchief and wiped moisture from the back of his neck.
‘So I heard. Abdul al-Hussain is also aggrieved.’
‘He is?’ Durden looked surprised. ‘Why?’
‘He was anticipating a rival crossing into Pakistan to tie up an arms deal. Al-Hussain had put his men there to intercept him. Instead, your men turned up. In the darkness they must have been mistaken for the warlord and his entourage.’
‘That explains the encounter they had. They thought they’d been led into a trap.’
‘No, no,’ Nagi said, emphasising his words with extravagant hand gestures, ‘they just wandered into the wrong area. I personally had no idea that al-Hussain was planning to hit his competitor. If I did, I would have warned you to avoid that route.’
Durden studied Sentinel’s face and saw deceit etched all over it.
‘In that case, you wouldn’t mind me looking at your phone for a moment.’
‘My phone?’ Nagi asked. ‘What…What for?’
‘I’d like to download the text message logs to study back at
base. Just to convince my superiors that you’re playing straight with us.’
Sentinel sat back in his chair and smiled as he reached into his pocket for his cell. Then he handed it over to Durden. ‘Of course.’
Durden took out a memory card and inserted it into the Siemens SL45. He already knew the phone’s make and model, having seen it at a previous meeting and had brought along a multimedia card that would fit. Once inserted, he clicked a few buttons, occasionally gazing up at Sentinel. After a couple of minutes he removed the card and handed the phone back.
‘I’ll have the messages translated and analysed. If they tell me you’re being less than honest, there will be consequences.’
Nagi put his hand on his heart. ‘As Allah is my witness, I have always been truthful with you.’
Durden stared at him for a few moments, then sat back in his chair and offered a thin smile. ‘Okay, I believe you. So what’s the information you desperately wanted to pass to me?’
Nagi looked around the room, then leaned in closer. Durden couldn’t help thinking Nagi had watched too many spy movies.
‘There will be an attack on forward operating base Vincent this Saturday. Two o’clock in the morning. At least fifty heavily-armed fighters will be sent.’
That was music to Durden’s ears. If the intel had meant sending men out into the wilderness, Durden would have dismissed it out of hand. All this would entail, though, was a reassigning of resources; a few extra men to repel the attack, perhaps the beefing-up of the base’s structural defences. If the attack didn’t come it would cement Sentinel’s fate, but if the informer was being truthful, then he would actually save lives.
‘Who exactly will be carrying out the attack?’ Durden asked.
Sentinel looked confused. ‘You want the names of the fighters?’
‘No, I just want to know if these are seasoned veterans, or if al-Hussain has brought people in from outside…or maybe he’s going to throw a lot of kids at us again. The more information I have, the better we can prepare.’
‘Ah. That, I do not know. When Abdul was discussing the attack, I was outside the room. I could only hear bits of the conversation.’
Durden leaned back in his seat and stared at Nagi, making the informer fidget with his fingers. Eventually, he sat up straight again. ‘Okay, but next time, I want details.’ He took a roll of money from his pocket and slipped it under the table to Sentinel. The notes quickly disappeared inside Nagi’s clothing.
‘How is my visa progressing?’ Nagi asked, his voice still low.
‘As I told you, these things take time. It’s with the State Department as we speak, but there’s not much I can do to rush them along. In the meantime, you need to keep feeding me information on al-Hussain. The more you help me thwart his plans, the easier it will be to convince my superiors that you should be relocated to the States.’
When Nagi had first come to Durden, he had asked for more than was on offer. Alongside the cash payments, he wanted to be given passage to the United States, with settlement rights. Quite a few of the informers asked for the same thing, and Durden’s response was always the same: provide me with enough worthwhile information and I’ll make it happen. In most cases it was an empty promise; the informer gave him intel that was a couple of days old, the target was long gone, and the snitch never returned.
Sentinel, though, had delivered from day one.
He’d come to Durden with news of an IED planted on the main road just outside of Kandahar. It was designed to destroy a passing coalition convoy and would be remotely detonated. He gave Durden the locations of both the device and the man tasked with detonating it. A snatch team had been sent in and the threat verified. EOD technicians from the 184th Ordnance Battalion had neutralised the bomb and the 72-year-old holding the phone had been picked up. He’d claimed to have been forced into it by local militias on pain of death and had been released a few days later.
Durden had arranged another meeting with Nagi to dig into his background. When he discovered that the Afghan was on the fringes of Abdul al-Hussain’s network, he immediately agreed to help him leave the country once he’d proven his worth. Durden had actually started the paperwork, something he rarely did at such an early stage.
He’d be cancelling it now, though.
In his fifty years on the planet, he’d fine-tuned what he liked to call his bullshit detector—right now it was telling him that Sentinel was full of it.
Even though he’d provided information that had saved a few lives, Durden knew that Nagi’s real alliance lay with Abdul al-Hussain.
Durden ran his hands through his bleached-blond hair, now thick with perspiration. ‘What I really need from you is al-Hussain’s itinerary.’
‘You’ve asked me for that before—I told you it is impossible. I am not close enough to him to gain access to it, and if I try they will kill me. I am already risking my life by meeting with you.’
Durden doubted that very much, but it didn’t matter. Thanks to Nagi’s stupidity, he would soon have Abdul al-Hussain. The tracking software he’d uploaded to Nagi’s phone would let the CIA know where it was to within five metres, whether it was powered on or not. And when in use, it would record all conversations which would be sent to Langley for analysis. He’d told Nagi on his second meeting that he should get a new phone, one to be used for contact between the two of them and no-one else. Nagi had done so, but judging by his reaction when Durden had asked for the handset, he hadn’t followed the instructions to the letter. The fearful look when he’d handed over his cell informed him he’d used it to call others, possibly al-Hussain himself. Unfortunately, Durden hadn’t had time to note down all the numbers in the call log. He’d made a mental note though, to contact Langley and suggest a dual-purpose virus; one that would grab the phone’s contents while uploading the tracking software.
‘I understand how difficult it would be,’ Durden told him, ‘but he’s the man we really want. If you can hand him to us on a plate, I’m sure your resettlement application could be fast-tracked.’
He knew Nagi had no intention of moving to the US, but it was a game that had to be played.
‘I will see what I can do, but I make no promises.’
‘That’s all I ask,’ Durden assured him. ‘In the meantime, tell me what you know about a woman called Miriam Dagher.’
Again, Nagi’s face betrayed him. ‘I have heard the name mentioned.’
‘What was said?’
‘I don’t know,’ Nagi replied, regaining his composure. ‘I was standing in a hallway when al-Hussain walked by, and he mentioned that name.’
Durden nodded thoughtfully. ‘And what about a virus that makes men invincible? Have you heard anything about that?’
Nagi managed a laugh. ‘Yes, but it is fanciful stuff; the kind of stories you tell children at bedtime. There is no such thing.’
‘There is,’ Durden told him, ‘and I want you to find out all you can about it. In particular I need to know where the Dagher woman is right now. It is imperative we get her back.’
Nagi leaned forward. ‘Really? I thought they were simply tales.’
‘Far from it. We think al-Hussain has her, and if she gives him the virus it could tip the war in the Taliban’s favour. I can’t stress how important it is that we prevent that from happening.’
‘Again, I will do all I can.’
‘Do more,’ Durden said. Then he got up and left, pacing back to his car. The armed driver opened the door for him, then got back behind the wheel.
As the car headed back to the base, Durden wondered if the attack on FOB Vincent would be carried out by fighters infected with Dagher’s virus. It would be prudent to film it, just in case. Balmer was preparing a report on the firefight the previous evening, but to see it in action would give him a much better idea of the virus’s capabilities. His paymasters at Langley were also keen to get first-hand accounts—and there was nothing more reliable than video evidence.
Chapter 20
>
‘Who’s the kid?’ Sonny Baines asked, looking over Tom Gray’s shoulder.
Gray looked up from the picture of his nephew he’d received in the post—one of the highlights of his week. ‘That’s Sean. He’s Dina’s sister’s son.’
‘Poor sod,’ Sonny said. ‘Looks a lot like you. You been playing away from home?’
‘Cheeky bastard,’ Gray said, pushing him away. ‘He’s nothing like me.’
‘It’s the eyes. He’s got your eyes. And the ears. He’s definitely got some Gray in him.’
Gray didn’t bite. Arguing with Sonny was always a pointless exercise. ‘Dina says she wants one, too,’ he said to Len Smart.
‘And what about you… you ready to be a dad?’
Gray lay back on his bunk, his hands behind his head. ‘You know what? I am.’
‘You serious.’ Sonny chuckled. ‘You want to make a little version of you? Why would you intentionally create something that’s gonna grow up with a tiny dick and questionable hygiene.’
Sonny was silenced by a paperback hitting the crown of his head. ‘Better that than no dick and a questionable IQ,’ Smart said as he stooped to pick up his book. ‘It’s gotta be hard for Dina, you being over here.’
‘It’s hard for both of us,’ Gray admitted. He was the only one in the entire troop who was married. The others either had casual girlfriends or, like Len, were single. Life in the SAS often meant being deployed to dangerous situations at a moment’s notice, and not many women were comfortable with that. Gray’s wife Dina was an exception. Before proposing, he’d made it clear that the SAS was his career and he wouldn’t be giving it up, and she’d been fine with that. She’d promised never to ask him to choose between the army and their relationship and had stuck to her word.
Recently, though, it was Gray who had been torn. This wasn’t the first time she’d suggested starting a family, and he’d been thinking about it a lot over the past months. On the plus side, he wanted a child as much as Dina did, but it wouldn’t be fair to his wife nor the baby for him to remain in the SAS. It was a profession fraught with risk, and he hated the thought of his wife having to bring up a child alone. Gray’s parents had put him up for adoption at a tender age, and as a result he’d spent his entire childhood moving from one foster family to another. He wasn’t about to let that happen to any child of his.
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