The Walking Dead

  He lifted the waistcoat.

  He held it by the collar and raised it so that its hem cleared the table. He saw himself, side view, in the mirror. It was against his body; his sweatshirt was hidden by it. The mirror was on a chest of drawers, old, stained and flawed, and the image of the sticks was thickened and the wires seemed to Ramzi to cascade into a tangle, and hanging loose, below the mirror's field, was the button switch.

  Perhaps a mosque would have been named after him or a cultural centre. He would go to God with the love of his sisters. But the waistcoat was too small for his muscled shoulders, was meant for another and would not have fitted him. He panted, almost an exhalation of relief. He could not have worn it. A shadow crossed behind him. A hand was at his throat and he froze. He felt the fingers tighten and the breath was squeezed out of him.

  He choked and he could not turn. Past the opening in the curtains he saw grass, then the hedge and an empty field. His strength from gymnasium weight-lifting did not help him. He could not break the hand's grip.

  He was freed. Ramzi staggered back. The waistcoat was laid neatly on the table, but his hand, which went up to his throat, where the pressure had been, still had the tackiness on it.

  He ran from the room, and in the corridor he heard the sound of a car's approach.

  'I've less than five minutes, Joe, then I must rush. It's our A Branch, the surveillance people–not that I have anything to offer them for tracking but it's a matter of keeping them in the picture.'

  'We were talking mistakes, Dickie. The Scorpion is the equivalent of a corporation's chief executive officer, except that he's not all warm and comfortable on the thirty-ninth floor, and he doesn't have Research and Development below him, or a finance section, or half a hundred from Media Relations or Human Resources. He has to do it all with couriers, use cut-outs, flit between houses, byres and holes in the ground under the stars for sleep. Yet, without a CEO's back-up, this guy is running us ragged. But, and this is important, when the business big-shot makes a mistake, he has minions to clear up the mess. Not my guy. He is alone, and more alone on your territory than if he had stayed in Iraq. What does he think of the people he has to work with here? A British Asian is from a different culture, has not been toughened by combat, is used to having sheets on the bed. He will think little of them. His mistake was ever to have travelled. I tell you, Iraq is a safe environment for him, but this is not. To make him pay, and dearly, for that mistake, we need one thing. That's the priceless commodity of luck…Now;off you go, Dickie, if you're not to keep those good folks waiting.'

  'He could have damaged it.' The anger, cold and controlled, sparked in the Engineer's eyes.

  'But was it imbecility or sabotage?'

  He had come into the cottage, followed by Khalid. The driver had carried the box and the big plastic bottle, and before he had set them down on a chair, the Engineer had burst into the living area and made the accusation. For a moment, briefly, Ajaq had floundered. Now he had heard the story. His glance, withering, fell on Syed and Faria and they had turned away as if they believed the guilt of Ramzi was their responsibility too.

  'Probably stupid, without thought, but handling it under no supervision could have damaged it, and I would not have known. What do I do? Do I check every fastening, unpeel every taping join? He could have broken it.'

  'But it was not sabotage?'

  'I don't think so.'

  'If there is, in your mind, a whiff of the scent of that, then…'

  The sentence was left unfinished. He did not need to speak it. If his friend, the Engineer, had harboured that suspicion the consequences were clear. A knife from the drawer in the kitchen Himself and his friend taking the creature away into the fields in the evening, when darkness had come, and one of them bringing a spade. A walk across the ploughed fields to the trees.

  'He is stupid, vain, but a child.' The Engineer's voice dropped to a murmur and its pitch would not have reached Khalid, Syed and the girl. 'It is a shit place and they are shit people. They should not have been given to us. We should be out, gone.'

  'Friend, when we are ready. Not here, later, we will talk…Where is he?'

  'In his room. Probably he whimpers for his mother.'

  'I will speak with him.'

  He told Khalid to open the box, take out the contents and learn to work the camera. They scuttled with it to the kitchen. He slapped the arm of the Engineer in affection. They were colleagues, brothers, but far from home. He went out of the room, ducked his head under the beams and came to the door.

  As he entered, the boy lay on the bed, but started back and cringed against the headboard. He saw the terror bright in the eyes and the heavy shoulder muscles quivered. But the world of Muhammad Ajaq, the Scorpion in the files of his enemy, was both the creation of fear and the breeding of loyalty He smiled. He allowed the warmth of his smile to run on his lips and he saw confusion spread over the idiot's face…But he could not mask the contempt in his eyes, because they carried truth and the smile was a lie.

  He said, 'Your life, Ramzi, was in the palm of the hand of my friend. If there had been with my friend a suspicion of betrayal then you were dead. Not a martyr's death but a traitor's. My friend says to me–and he held your life in his hand–that you were stupid…So, you live.'

  The voice was hoarse, as if a fist was at the boy's throat. 'Thank you…I meant no…'

  'You meant no harm. I understand. You were inquisitive. You were given to us, Ramzi, put into this cell because it was thought you could be relied on, depended on. Where I fight, a cell must be secure or it will fail, and failure comes when respect inside the cell is lost. Trust was placed in you. Should I doubt that trust?'

  'No…no,' the boy stammered.

  'It will not happen again…will not.' He stood over the boy, above him. He saw again the squirming movement against the pillows. He did not realize then the mistake he made, the scale of it, or the consequences. His hand rested loosely on the boy's shoulders–as it had on Ibrahim Hussein, who would die when he walked–and he felt the tension in the muscles there.

  The mistake was made and he had no knowledge of it.

  He left the room.

  'Let's pick up where we left off, Dickie. Mistakes.'

  'Would you like more coffee, Joe? I can get it made.'

  'No more coffee. I'll need to relieve myself. No, thanks…How long we got this time?'

  'We have a desk officer, downstairs, assigned to this. He's pulling together what strings we have–supposed to be with him ten minutes ago. Anyway…'

  Joe Hegner said, 'I was at mistakes…But there is pressure on the Twentyman, the Scorpion. If we take a wider picture, over the last few months there have been in excess of sixty suicide-bombs, walking and driven, in Iraq. They are pumping them through and there is no sign that the belt is emptying. Each bomb has a diminished impact–the same happened on a lesser scale in Israel. Life has to go on, because for the living there is no alternative. Children go to school because they must have education. Families shop because they must eat to survive. Men stand in queues outside police recruiting offices because they have no other alternative of employment. Many die, atrocities are frequent, but the social fabric continues to exist, even if at Stone Age levels. I said "diminished impact". That is crucial to the mistake. The war against the Coalition demands impact. Can't find impact in that God-forsaken place. Impact requires momentum. Momentum gains headlines in newspapers and leads on the satellite channels. Bali, Madrid and your experiences a year and a half ago gain newspaper inches and television time.

  'You Brits, your society is flabby and has an unprotected underbelly. You could not sustain what is the daily chore of life in Iraq. So, the son-of-a-bitch is sent here where the hazards to his safety are so much greater. In the wake of his arrival there are the growing–perhaps inevitable–chances of more minor mistakes, which, if you boys are lucky, will kill him. Why is there the probability of "minor mistakes" to add to the big one? In Iraq, on his own ground, h
e is among everything that is familiar, and he surrounds himself with proven men. Here, he cannot. Here, it's about who he has now to work with and–'

  'It'll have to keep, Joe. I'm sure you understand.'

  Through the wall of the room, Ibrahim heard the sounds of a man's weeping.

  It should have been a time of joy as the day approached. He should have been able to share joy with brothers and a sister, but there had been dispute and argument, and now he heard desolate weeping.

  He recited to himself from the Book, 3-169: 'You must not think that those who are slain in the cause of Allah are dead. They are alive and well provided for by their Lord.' He had thought the words would comfort him, but they did not. Despair was hooked in his mind. There was no celebration of what he would do when he walked, when he held the switch in his hand, only raised voices–and now hopeless tears were offered him through the wall. Why? Why was there no joy?

  Ibrahim left his room, went down the corridor and away from the crying. He came to the living room and the curtains were drawn there. He stood in the shadows at the door. He was not seen.

  From the centre of the room, a beam of light sliced the darkness and fell on the face of Jamal. The source of the light was a small video-camera–what his father would have sold in his shop–and its beam was on Khalid's face and his eyes, which blinked. Syed was behind the camera, and at his side was Faria. None of them saw him. He was not noticed. He held his breath and listened.

  Khalid held a sheet of paper in his hand, and complained: 'It's so difficult–it's hard to read with the light in my face.'

  'Doesn't matter,' Syed said. 'He will have had time to learn it.' Faria said, head angled and her hands on her hips, accentuating her curves, 'I'm not sure it sounds right, do it again.'

  Syed took on the accent of an American–he was crouched over the camera, eye pressed to the view-finder, as if it was Hollywood. 'Ready? OK. Action. Go in five.'

  Beside him, her hand out, Faria dropped each finger as she counted down five seconds, then pointed to Khalid.

  Khalid gazed at the lens, and his eyes seemed to water. 'Here we go…"I would like to say to you that I have come to Britain in order to strive in the path of God and to fight the enemy of Muslims. I am the living martyr. God, be He exalted…" It's so difficult to read this. Do I keep going? Right…"At this time we say to the whole world, and declare it as a mighty shout, that the will of Muslims will not weaken and that the retaliatory fire will blaze until the crusaders and oppressors have departed from the Muslim homeland…" Do I have to read it all, or can I go to the end?'

  'Just do the end,' Faria said.

  'The last sentence, his sign-off,' Syed said.

  'Going in five…"To Blair and Bush, I say that the curse is on your faces. I will await you all, my brothers, in Paradise. Do not forget me in your prayers…" That's it. Can he learn that, no stumbles, straight to The camera?'

  'Yes, he can,' Faria said. 'At the moment it sounds like the written word, not the spoken word. It needs to be drafted again.' Syed mimicked the studio director: 'Cut. Break the set.'

  'It is impossible to read it with meaning and make it a sincere testament because it is not me that is going to walk,' Jamal said.

  Ibrahim turned away, went quietly into the corridor. Then lights flooded on and he heard the curtains dragged open.

  'He will say it well,' she said, her voice faint to him. 'Just as he will walk well because he has the dedication–we do not–and the strength.'

  Dickie Naylor said, 'We're moving fast, little pieces beginning to slot together. It's all about The Threatened Swan. I apologize, is that a riddle to you?'

  'Miss Reakes briefed me on the work of Jan Asselyn in the Rijksmuseum, but out in Montana we're not big on art,' Hegner said, drily.

  'I don't know how many hotels, accommodation addresses we've checked but it'll be hundreds…It's the swan on the T-shirt that did the business. Ibrahim Hussein was in a hotel in north London until Saturday. They remembered him checking in. Never left his room all the time he was there. So, he's somewhere in London and we have the city in lock-down. There were others in the hotel, probably linked, and it's being worked on. For the first time, Joe, I feel a faint justification of optimism.'

  'Not warranted, Dickie.'

  'Christ, you ape a kill-joy well. Why not?'

  'Where I come from, Dickie, all the bombs are not at the airport or up against the Green Zone of Baghdad. A few, but not the majority. They hit round the country, not where the security is tightest Here, it won't be London. You call for a lock-down and you've every gun-carrying policeman you can muster on the streets, off days in lieu and furlough breaks, and every one of them who would be doing thieving, mugging, fraud, rape and administration. Your capital is stiff with policemen standing shoulder to shoulder. So, the Twentyman, the Scorpion, leaves it well alone. Go look where you're soft and unprotected, where your citizens gather in numbers, because that is where the threat will be. Look where there are no guns, no barricades. Look where ordinary people go about their daily business, where your citizens think they're safe.'

  'But that could be anywhere.'

  'I'm telling you it won't be London but somewhere that thinks it's safe and out of the terror frame. Somewhere there is still innocence, and ignorance.'

  A wraith figure, Lee Donkin followed the woman. The light ebbed on the Dunstable road. The woman was perfect and soon she would come to the underpass tunnel. She was on her mobile as she walked and the handbag on her arm wasn't even zipped. And it all went bloody pear-shaped. This gang spilled out of the food shop, saw her and recognized her, and it was all kisses, and she was in the middle of them–in a knot of men and women–and she'd been perfect. Wasn't perfect any longer. He crossed the road, drifted on and never looked back. Twenty minutes he'd been following her. Twenty minutes wasted. He cursed, kicked a can off the pavement into the traffic, and went through the tunnel. After twenty minutes of it, psyched and steeled for the snatch, then let down like the fix was finished, he hadn't the will–or the energy–to go looking for another target. He went on into the town centre, head down and hood up, but his savage mood was short-lived. He was in the square. Through the trees, past the vagrants and the dossers on the benches, Lee Donkin saw the posters on the Arndale's walls…Bloody good, bloody ace. Sales, bargains and giveaways on offer this coming weekend. Starting up Saturday, nine a.m. Bloody brilliant. Punters would be coming into town, women would have their purses bulging, and they'd be half asleep, hurrying down the Dunstable road. Bloody first-class pickings.

  Naylor scribbled reminders on the sheets of his Post-it pad and stuck them on his desk surface, where clear spaces could be found. Joe Hegner was far back in his chair and talked on. So much was now crammed, squashed, into Dickie Naylor's mind. Everything that day, the meetings and the briefing, had been of critical importance but his ability to absorb was failing–his thoughts were far away, where he had heard the gulls, the waves and the wind.

  'Dickie, his problems are with the quality of the cell he has been given. They're not people of his choice. The Twentyman, or the Scorpion, has not interviewed them, has not had the chance to run vetting over them, or to check references–as a CEO would have. The only one alongside him whom he's certain of is the bomb-maker, the Engineer. The rest he has to take on trust, and that's a big step for him, but he cannot do without them. He will be in safe accommodation, probably a short-term rental. With him will be a driver, a guy who has done the necessary reconnaissance of a target, another who will provide immediate security where the cell is gathered, and another who is there to watch over the perimeter of those premises and is staked out at the end of the street or wherever, and he will need some sort of logistics individual. Can he rely on any of them? He will not be happy to depend on individuals whose recruitment was not in his own hands. Then, introduced into this little coven, there is the boy who will do the walk or will drive the car. They are all, believe me, boxed up together, and there will be tensions–ha
ve to be tensions–and it is then that mistakes are made, and you have the chance to get lucky. But the stakes for him are high and he must live with the stresses that might be fracturing the cell. If there's an opportunity, you have to be able to exploit it. Will you? Can you?'

  Outside his cubicle office, Mary stood at her desk, gestured to Naylor, tapped the face of her watch and pulled a droll face. She seemed to have looked after the self-invited guest well, because each time he returned there was a new sandwich wrapper beside his chair, or a fresh glass, and most recently there had been a finished soup bowl.

  'Sorry and all that, time's up. My answer is, most definitely, I will and I can react to Lady Luck or a mistake.'

  The gulls wheeled and shrieked over the disintegrating carcass of a cod that had been discarded from a fishing-boat. The sea beat in a fury against the headlands of rock fingers at the extremities of the bay, known in the old language as Port Uisken. The wind, with rain in it, came from the south-west at a strength of force eight, blistered spray over the rocks and whined in the telephone wires…On those telephone wires, the message had come that had put them on standby status.

  Two men trudged into the teeth of the elements and returned to their home. They came over a hill, too slight in elevation to have been given a Gaelic name but it had provided them with a minimum of protection while they were in its lee. Now they were exposed: the wind whipped them and the rain thrashed them, but they struggled on with the determination that was their hallmark. The taller of them carried a new-born heifer calf under his waterproof jerkin and the shorter steadied his friend when they came down off the hill and over weather-smoothed stones where the lichen was soap-slippery. Trailing them was a Highland cow and, behind them, the afterbirth mess that by the following morning would have been taken by the carrion crows or the ravens if the pair of big eagles that nested on the duff, the Cnoc nan Gabhar, had not ventured up and found it. The calf, still wet and with slime on it, was under the jerkin of Xavier Boniface. The steadying hand was that of Donald Clydesdale.