Nine Lives

by Tom Barber

  ‘Be careful,’ the man with the camera whispered. ‘The pilot.’

  His companion nodded. The pilot was still in the cockpit, facing in their direction three hundred yards down the runway. If the man in the shadows didn’t cover the light on the phone, the pilot could see it and get suspicious. Concealing it carefully with a black cloth, the man pressed Redial under the fabric and lifted it to his ear. The call rang three times, then connected and Special Agent Crawford’s voice appeared on the other line.

  ‘Brody. How are we doing?’ he asked.

  ‘Sir, we’re in place. Farha just landed,’ whispered Agent Brody. ‘It looks like they’ve taken him to see Henry but I think they’ll all be coming back. Looks like the deal isn’t going down for at least another hour. The plane is still here.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ came Agent Crawford’s voice. ‘Special Agent Cruz is in place. Farha isn’t going anywhere without us knowing about it.’

  ‘When are you coming back, sir?’ Brody whispered.

  ‘Rivers and I have to stay here for a while longer. But stay on them. The moment the deal is done, call me. I’ve spoken to the Saudi Police and DEA back-up. They’ll be ready and waiting for when the jet lands back in Riyadh.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Brody whispered.

  The call ended. Agent Brody returned the phone to his pocket. Together, the two men lay in total silence in the darkness.

  Waiting for the cartel drug lord to return.

  SIXTEEN

  On the lower level of the Unit’s headquarters, Cobb was momentarily all alone. He was standing in the observation room to one of the interrogation cells. Through the glass, Frost and Number Eight were sitting across from each other, like two players in a chess game. Crawford had been here just a minute ago, but he’d stepped outside for a cigarette. They'd both just been updated by Nikki about what happened at the airport and hotel. Porter was the guy on the line. He said that Shapira had shot one of the terrorists just before he fired a rocket launcher at a commercial jet coming in from New York.

  A rocket launcher.

  Cobb rubbed his eyes, shaking his head with disbelief. This day had been like one long bad dream. It was as if fate had saved all the bad luck and trouble from the year and packed it all into one day, stalking them like a nemesis. And the night was still young. Two more of them were still out there. Three, considering the cuffs hadn’t yet gone on Farha. Cobb realised he was enjoying being alone in the small dark room for the moment. It felt like the only quiet room in the building, a place for him to think and ponder. But just as those thoughts came into his mind, the door behind him clicked open as Crawford walked in, closing it behind him gently. He was carrying two mugs of coffee.

  ‘I just spoke to two of my men,’ he said, passing one to Cobb. ‘The jet’s landed outside Paris. They’ve taken Farha into the city’.

  Cobb gave him a look. Crawford read it. ‘Don’t worry. My men are in place. He’s not going anywhere.’

  ‘The guy is the most wanted terrorist in Europe right now. And we’re just leaving him alone to drive around Paris and catch-up with his old crew,’ Cobb said. ‘One of his people just tried to take out a commercial 757 jet. Another tried to blow herself and an entire Terminal up at Heathrow for Christ’s sake.’

  He sighed.

  ‘This whole play just isn’t sitting well with me.’

  Crawford nodded.

  ‘I understand. I totally get it. But please, just wait a little longer. We’re talking ninety minutes. The moment the buy is done, we can move in. I have almost an entire DEA division on standby in Riyadh’s city centre, as well as the police force there. They’ll be waiting for them the moment the plane returns. Anywhere Farha goes, we’ll know about it. Don’t worry, I have constant surveillance on him.’

  Cobb nodded, reluctantly. A silence fell.

  Together, their attention naturally shifted to the interrogation happening through the glass.

  ‘So who was she? The girl?’ Frost asked, inside the interrogation cell.

  The bomber said nothing. Frost reached for a cup of coffee he’d brought down from upstairs and took a long sip. He also used the moment to examine the guy in front of him closely.

  He was different from his two cohorts, the guys they’d picked up from the raid earlier in the day. Frost could see that straight away. This man was impassive and cold. The other suspect hadn’t been able to look Frost in the eye, but this guy was holding the detective’s gaze, a contemptuous smile on his lips.

  And strangely, he still seemed relaxed, despite the apparent failures of the evening and his broken nose.

  All in all, the guy looked smug, which was unnerving the detective.

  It was a look that said I know something you don’t.

  This was a completely different scenario than it had been with the other suspect. The kid had started tough and ended the interrogation in pieces. But the guy sat before Frost now seemed arrogant, his eyes hard and uncaring, a smirk on his lips. There wasn’t a single ounce of humanity anywhere about his person. His nose had also been smashed, broken by the Mossad agent. It was a nasty injury. Someone had stuffed two pads of gauze up there, but blood was seeping through the gaps, staining the white bandage red. It also made his voice grotesquely nasal and muffled.

  ‘Who was she?’ he tried again. This time, the terrorist responded, which surprised him.

  ‘I didn’t know her,’ the guy said, his raspy voice dampened from the padding up nose. It sounded creepy. ‘Farha picked her up a couple of months back.’

  ‘Were they together? An item?’

  The man looked at him.

  ‘Who gives a shit?’

  ‘He must have had some hold on her, to make her do what she did.’

  The guy shrugged.

  ‘He used her. She was stupid. A stupid bitch. Now she’s dead. A stupid dead bitch.’

  The terrorist paused. He looked at Frost, closely.

  ‘But he got away, didn’t he?’

  ‘I’m asking the questions.’

  ‘Must piss you off,’ the man continued, with a grin. He sniffed, and some blood dropped from the gauze to the table. ‘He was so close and you lost him.’

  Frost allowed himself to feel a small moment of victory. That’s what you think, you smug prick. The suspect had no idea that the DEA were currently tracking Farha’s every move. Cobb had told Frost of the situation before he’d started the interrogation. So this time, it was the detective with the gleam in his eye. The terrorist noticed it. Riding the momentum and enjoying the power shift, Frost tapped the photocopy in front of him.

  ‘Forget about him. I want to know about these two,’ he said, pointing to Number One and Four. ‘Where are they?’

  The guy shook his head, snorting as more blood spilled from the makeshift bandages stuffed up his nostrils.

  ‘No way. I’m not saying shit till I get a lawyer.’

  ‘That could take a while. Traffic’s bad on New Year’s Eve. Could take all night.’

  Number Eight’s smirk suddenly changed into a full-on grin. Something Frost had just said had triggered it. The guy started smiling like he’d won the lotto, or just spent the night with a supermodel.

  ‘What time is it?’ he asked.

  Frost ignored the question. Said nothing. He didn’t want to respond and let the power swing back towards the suspect like a pendulum. You grant a request, then before you know it, you end up granting the next one. Anyone the wrong side of this table needed to be reminded every second who was in charge, otherwise things could spiral out of control. Frost had seen it before. Give them an inch, they’ll take a mile.

  The suspect could sense he was trying to keep the upper hand and grinned again, like a Cheshire cat.

  ‘C’mon, you can tell me the time. Nothing weak about that. I’m the one wearing the cuffs, remember,’ he said.

  Frost looked at him. Weighed his options. His jacket was off, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up.

  He glanced at his wrist.


  ‘9:50pm’

  The suspect whistled, blood staining his upper lip as it leaked from his nose.

  ‘You’d better get moving, old man. You haven’t got time to play stupid games. And you’ll be very interested in what I have to say, I guarantee. That’s a promise.’

  Frost held his gaze. He didn’t know if this was a play, or the guy was telling the truth. He watched him carefully. He felt his stomach tingle. The guy knew something they didn’t.

  It was written all over his face.

  Frost tried another approach, picking his words carefully. He had to, seeing as the whole exchange was recorded on tape.

  ‘We could persuade you to talk. You never know. We can be very persuasive when we want to be.’

  The suspect grinned. ‘Go ahead. I’m getting bored, anyway. And I’ve got nothing but time.’

  He paused.

  ‘Something you’re running out of.’

  Outside the room, Cobb and Crawford were watching closely as they both sipped on coffee from the two mugs. They saw Frost rise and move to the door. He entered the observation room and joined the other two men, closing it behind him.

  ‘What do you think?’ Cobb asked immediately. ‘Has he got something?’

  Frost looked at him, wiping his brow. ‘I hate to say it, but yes, sir. I think he has. He wouldn’t be that cocky without good reason.’

  Cobb double checked the time on his watch. 9:51pm. ‘Shit. We’ve got just over two hours till midnight. There’re crowds gathering all over the city,’ he said. ‘Bombings, rocket-launchers, stolen ambulances. What the hell are this lot going to come up with next?’

  Crawford was looking intently at the suspect through the glass, saying nothing. Cobb noticed.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked the American.

  ‘I’ve encountered my fair share of guys like him since I joined the Agency,’ he said, watching Number Eight next door. ‘Ninety-nine per cent of all the terrorists and extremists out there, they’re too fanatical for their own good. Past all their ideology, dogma, whatever the hell they believe in, most of them struggle to think for themselves. Which is what makes them so easy to manipulate.’

  Cobb nodded. ‘Like the boy from the raid. Number Three.’

  ‘Or the girl at the airport,’ said Frost.

  ‘Exactly,’ continued Crawford. ‘And let’s remember gentlemen, this man wasn’t suicidal. He tried to detonate two separate devices remotely. Which tells us two very important things. One, he’s intelligent.’

  ‘And two?’ asked Cobb.

  ‘He wants to live. He’s got no reason to lie, he’s telling the truth. And he’s the only lead you have right now. Like you said, there are crowds gathering all over London, waiting for midnight. And the clock’s ticking.’

  Cobb looked through the glass at the suspect.

  Crawford was right.

  SEVENTEEN

  Across the building, the task force had just returned from the airport and the hotel. Seeing as they had to be on call and couldn’t afford to be pinned down to any one area, the CID and airport police had taken over the crime scenes. After stowing their weapons in the kit rooms, it was once again a case of sitting around and waiting, each man poised to spring into action at a moment’s notice. One thing was for sure, the coffee machine in the briefing room was having the busiest day of its life too.

  After the team had met up at the hotel and headed back, those who needed to be were filled in by Porter, Deakins and Fox on what had happened on the rooftop. Any reservations the officers had about the newcomers, including Mac’s, were forgotten. Rivers’ speed of thought and Shapira’s speed on the trigger had saved everyone on the jet from being killed. As he stood to one side in the briefing room, Rivers watched as the female Mossad agent shook hands with Sergeant McGuire. The American felt especially indebted to her. He’d hesitated a split-second too long.

  As a medical team and the CID arrived at the hotel to take over the crime-scene, Shapira had taken the DEA agent to one side and asked about the situation with Dominick Farha. She told him she’d invested a lot of time in his case, a case which would end only with his capture, and said that she knew something was going between the Americans and Cobb that she didn’t know about. Feeling as if he owed her, he’d updated her on the DEA’s current involvement. Their surveillance positioned in place in Paris, tailing him, holding back until two of their agents caught the drug deal on camera. He’d told her all of it willingly, he didn’t just owe her one, he owed her more than two hundred and fifty. One for every soul on board the airplane that she saved. Shapira had been grateful, she’d thanked him, saying that Mossad wouldn’t interfere but it was good to be kept in the loop.

  Now that they were back, most of the guys on the task force were sitting across the room, either drinking coffee or just trying to relax. Rivers moved to the stand and poured himself a cup. He didn’t feel like it, but he poured it regardless. His body was still in Riyadh time, and he needed the caffeine. As the cup filled with the brown liquid pouring from the spigot, the American saw the young blond officer walk in, the one who’d been asking him about the op with Bin Laden. Archer, the guy was called. The policeman rubbed fatigue from his eyes as he wandered in, looking exhausted. He joined the DEA agent, pouring himself a cup after Rivers was done.

  ‘Talk about deja-vu,’ the policeman said. ‘And I don’t even like coffee.’ Rivers smiled as Archer shrugged. ‘Oh well. I guess it’s a day of firsts,’ he added.

  There was a pause. The two men ended up standing side by side by the window, holding their coffee, waiting for each cup to cool.

  ‘Good job with the guy at the hotel,’ Archer continued. ‘I don’t know how the hell you figured that one out, but thank God you did.’

  The American nodded without replying, looking outside the window. Shapira was across the car park, a phone to her ear. She saw the two men watching her and raised her hand in a brief wave. ‘Don’t thank me, man. She was the one who tagged him,’ said Rivers, lifting his hand in acknowledgement.

  A pause.

  ‘You said earlier you used to be a SEAL?’ Archer asked. Rivers nodded. ‘When’d you leave?’

  ‘End of last year.’

  ‘Why?’ the police officer asked, sipping his coffee and wincing from the taste.

  He shrugged. ‘Wasn’t the right place for me anymore. Lost my appetite for it. Once that goes, you’re done. I was discharged but wanted to stay working for the government. They helped me out, saying I deserved some sun, and transferred me to Crawford’s detail in the DEA. Before I knew it, I was on the next flight to Riyadh.’

  A pause.

  ‘That operation. Bin Laden,’ Archer started.

  ‘Geronimo,’ said Rivers.

  The policeman paused, confused. ‘Say again?’

  ‘Geronimo. That was the codename for him,’ said Rivers. Archer realised, smiled and nodded.

  ‘OK, Operation Geronimo, or whatever it was called. Were you nervous? About who the target was?’

  Rivers shook his head, sipping his coffee.

  ‘Didn’t have time to be. We’d rehearsed the actual assault for months. They rebuilt a scale replica of his compound in Pakistan at our training facility in Virginia, but we didn’t know what it really was or who the real place belonged to. We must have drilled that assault over a hundred and fifty times. I was in the first squad, coming in from the roof. By the end of all that training, I think I knew that compound better than my own house in Portland.’

  He sipped his coffee. Archer listened, in silence.

  ‘They told us who the target was for the first time just before the mission. Literally an hour before. Guess they didn’t want us getting nervous, or any shaky trigger fingers out there. Guys having nightmares weeks before it happened, freaking out, worrying if they were going to make a mistake. Shit like that.’

  Something had built inside the American.

  He paused, but decided to let it out.

  ‘
I'm not a hero, man. I had nothing to do with the end result. I never even made it inside the house.’

  Silence. Archer didn’t speak.

  ‘We trained for days, weeks, months. A once in a lifetime opportunity to write ourselves into the history books. But our helicopter, the one I was in, the turbines got caught in a wind tunnel over the house. It screwed with the rotors and we crashed just outside the compound. One of the biggest military operations in American history, and I'm injured before I even get there. The crash knocked me out. When I woke up, I was being stretchered out and the operation had been successfully completed.’

  He paused.

  ‘I’m good friends with the guys who got inside, who found him. I’m one of the few people in the world who actually knows who each of them are. Those guys, man they’ve got some stories to tell their grandchildren.’

  He drained his coffee, shaking his head.

  ‘I just wish that I did too.’

  Silence.

  Archer didn’t know what to say.

  Rivers stood for a moment, holding the empty polystyrene coffee cup in his hand.

  He then dropped it in the bin and walked out of the room. The blond police officer watched him go.

  Disappointing, the American had said earlier, when Archer asked him how he felt about the raid.

  Now he understood why.

  ‘We’ve got a lawyer on her way,’ Frost said.

  He’d collected himself and was back inside the interrogation room, opposite Number Eight. This time he decided to stay standing. He felt it gave him a psychological edge and reinforced the hierarchy in the room. Across the table, the arrested terrorist leaned back, it didn’t look as if he was buying the act.

  ‘She’d better hurry.’

  ‘We’ve got a few minutes till she gets here. Why don’t you start talking?’ said Frost. ‘Make it easier on yourself. Who knows, it could improve your standing with the judge.’