He made his way back to the main road and waited until there was no traffic in sight before sprinting to the main entrance, where he quickly checked the condition of the security. A large, rust-free chain and combination lock secured the two metal gates, and he made a mental note to add industrial-strength bolt cutters to his ever-growing shopping list.
Palmer ran back to his car, which he’d parked behind the tyre yard, then drove back into town, stopping off at a bar to grab a beer. He stayed there for just ten minutes, and once he reached his hotel he made a point of getting close enough to the receptionist that she could smell his breath as he asked for a morning wake-up call. This helped keep up the pretence of the travelling salesman out enjoying the local nightlife.
When he got to his room, he booted his laptop and logged into his proxy server before searching his contact list for the number of an old friend. He called using an unregistered pre-paid phone he’d bought earlier in the day.
“Sean,” he said when the connection was made. “It’s Ben. I was in town and thought I’d look you up.”
“Hey, it’s good to hear your voice, man.”
They chewed the fat for a couple of minutes before Palmer explained that he needed to do some shopping while he was in town.
“No problem,” Sean said. “I’m having a braai this weekend. Wanna join me?”
“Just like old times. Sure, sounds great.”
They arranged to meet at the farm just after midday on Saturday and Palmer ended the call. He spent the next thirty minutes finding a van rental company with a vehicle large enough for his purposes before turning the lights out and grabbing some sleep.
* * *
Andrew Harvey’s KLM flight touched down just after nine-thirty in the evening, and an hour later he was met in the arrivals lounge by a man wearing a suit despite the temperature being close to eighty Fahrenheit.
Dennis Owen was in his early thirties and had the bearing of a man who did more in life than simply offer advice on trade and industry matters. His hidden remit was to get detailed background information on companies looking to invest in the UK in order to ensure there were no skeletons in closets that might embarrass the country. The last thing the government needed was a repeat of the Quatromain fiasco a few years earlier. It transpired that the money men behind that corporation were subsequently prosecuted for drug-trafficking, which was a particular embarrassment for the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, who had personally signed off the deal.
Owen offered Harvey a confident handshake. “Welcome to South Africa.”
“Thanks,” Harvey said, stifling a yawn. The twenty hour journey had taken a lot out of him, despite managing to grab some sleep on the flight following the two-hour stopover in Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. “Did you have any luck with the seven names I sent you?”
“I’ve got a friend in the local police force and he did some checking, but none of them have any records here at all,” Owen said, as he led Harvey out of the airport terminal in direction of the car park. He stopped at a BMW saloon and once inside he handed a printed sheet to Harvey. “These are the supposed itineraries of your suspects. I also got the name of the haulage company collecting the containers you’re interested in. They’re a small firm called Wenban Freight Management.”
Hamad Farsi’s efforts had paid off. He’d made the connection between Timmy Hughes and Arnold Tang, which in turn led to the discovery that one of Tang’s companies had two consignments on the Huang Zhen. They hadn’t yet been able to get into the Durban Port Authority computers to find out who was collecting the containers, which was why they’d asked Owen to get the information. While they now knew who would be collecting the consignments, they still had no idea where they were going to be dropped off.
“What about the company?” Harvey asked. “Any ties to Arnold Tang?”
“None that we could find. It looks like your typical small business. They’ve been in operation for six years and grown from a couple of vehicles to ten during that time. Tax records and company accounts suggest this expansion has been financed using their own capital, and their income is consistent with a haulage company of that size.”
“That’s good. They should have no problems co-operating with us.”
“You’d think so, but we spoke to them this afternoon and the owner is reluctant to give us any information about his customers without a warrant.”
“Fine, so get one,” Harvey said.
“Not so easy,” Owen told him. “I asked my friend but he said the police will want documented evidence before they apply to the courts. We might have better luck with customs, though. If we let them know the container might contain illegal immigrants, they could check it at the port.”
Harvey thought about it, but soon dismissed the idea. “If we do that, we lose whoever’s here to meet them,” he said. If he was going to play his part in disrupting Farrar’s plans, he wanted concrete evidence of his involvement in any wrongdoing, and having the person or persons sent to carry out the kill order would be a good start.
It was forty-five minutes later when they arrived at the hotel and Owen dropped Harvey off outside.
“I’ll be back for you at seven in the morning, then I’ll drive you down to Durban. Your room is booked and paid for.”
Harvey thanked him and dragged his suitcase into the foyer. It was aesthetically mundane, though that mattered little to Harvey as he planned to do nothing more than sleep for the next six hours.
* * *
Azhar Al-Asiri threw open his arms to welcome his young general home.
“Salam alaikum!”
Abdul Mansour returned the greeting and took a seat at the small table. It was the first time he had been to Al-Asiri’s home and the humble surroundings were exactly as he would have fashioned for himself.
“How was your journey?”
“Fine,” Mansour said as he accepted the offer of tea, though fine was being generous. Once he’d received news that his lieutenant, Nabil Shah, had been killed on Jolo, Mansour had made his way home from Indonesia. He had spent most of the journey on a fishing vessel and it had been several days before he’d stopped throwing up. Even now he wondered if the smell would ever leave him.
“I am glad you are back, my friend. Tell me about your latest mission.”
Mansour explained how he’d delivered the weapons and money to the Abu Sayyaf leader and provided training in their use, but as for the attack itself, he only knew what the television and newspapers had reported. Over a hundred American and Filipino soldiers had been killed in the firefight at Camp Bautista, although Abu Sayyaf had lost a couple of hundred men in a reprisal attack immediately afterwards.
As for the overall mission, he had convinced the leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah — Abu Sayyaf’s Indonesian counterparts — to enter into talks aimed at creating a Muslim alliance. The promise of more weapons and money had been extended to the Indonesians, with a view to them controlling most of maritime South-East Asia.
“You have done Allah a great service,” Al-Asiri told him. “However, the fight must continue at pace. Tell me, how would you feel about going back to England one last time?”
“I will go wherever you ask,” Mansour said with heartfelt conviction.
“As I thought,” his master smiled as he leaned back into his chair. “Your mission will be to simply provide training to a new group of martyrs. You will not be exposed to danger yourself.”
“What do they need to know?”
“You will show them how to create explosive devices. These are young men who have not come under the scrutiny of the security services, and to use the internet for their research would be to wave a red flag at a bull.”
“How can we be sure that they are not being watched?” Mansour asked. “The last thing we should do is underestimate our enemies.”
“I have people with access to this information,” Al-Asiri said confidently. To his lasting regret, he hadn’t been able to get anyon
e into the security services themselves, but there were other agencies that were party to certain information, and airline no-fly and watch lists were just two ways of knowing if MI5 were interested in an individual.
“What would you have them attack?”
“There are multiple targets across the UK,” Al-Asiri told him. “In addition, co-ordinated attacks will take place in the US and Canada. Timing will be of the utmost importance.”
“Are these military targets, or infrastructure?” Mansour asked, intrigued.
“Sperm banks,” Al-Asiri said, and smiled at Mansour’s confused expression.
“I’m sorry, I do not understand. How will this further the cause?”
Al-Asiri explained how his research team had developed a virus that would kill off Y chromosome sperm, and spelled out his vision for the future. “The next generation of British and American children will be predominately female, which in years to come will reduce their fighting capability. The small percentage of males born will carry the new gene, which means the cycle continues in ever decreasing circles. The only chance to produce male offspring is through inter-racial breeding.”
Mansour looked at Al-Asiri and did well to hide his true feelings. His facial expression portrayed fascination, but inside he began to wonder if the old man had gone completely mad.
“You plan to breed them out of existence?”
“Exactly,” Al-Asiri told him. “In a hundred years, America and Britain as we know them will be nothing more than a page in the history books. Our Muslim influence will spread throughout their lands until ultimately the whole world kneels before Allah!”
Mansour had to marvel at the audacity of the plan, but it was flawed on so many fundamental levels.
“How many sperm banks are there in the UK and US?” He asked, hoping his master would recognise the scale of the operation he was proposing.
“Many hundreds,” Al-Asiri told him, “but we do not need to destroy them all. We have a website ready to go live, and it will proclaim the formation of the Campaign for Natural Birth. It is a fictitious Christian organisation seeking the abolition of medically-assisted pregnancy on the grounds that it is God alone who decides the birth of every child.
“We will bomb a small number of sperm banks in each country and CNB will claim responsibility for these actions, warning that more attacks will come unless they are closed down. They will also claim that anyone donating to one of these banks makes themselves a viable target.”
Mansour could see the sense in that approach, and if nothing else it would tie up the security services in both countries for quite some time. Nevertheless, he still had major concerns about the overall plan, and he wasn’t sure how much criticism he could level at his master’s idea.
“That still leaves them with a very large stock pile. I’m not sure these efforts will deliver the results you are looking for. I am also concerned that the bombers will give away the fact that a Christian group wasn’t actually behind the attacks.”
“That is why you are here,” Al-Asiri told him, his demeanour a lot less convivial than moments earlier. “I have given you the tools and explained the effect I wish to achieve. It is now up to you to make it work.”
Mansour sat in silence, the enormity of the task weighing heavily on his shoulders. His rise through the Al-Qaeda ranks had been meteoric, but fail this mission and all of his efforts would have been in vain.
Al-Asiri saw the blank, almost pained expression on his general’s face and offered a powerful incentive. “As you know, since the Sheik died and I took over his mantle, I delayed in filling the vacant place on the inner council. There was a reason for this.
“I have been watching you develop over the years, and your commitment to the cause, your courage and skill all point to you one day making a great leader.”
Al-Asiri paused to let the words sink in. “Complete this mission and take your place on the council.”
Mansour’s excitement was tempered by his concerns over Al-Asiri’s mental state. He had hoped to one day become a regional commander, but he’d envisaged that being many years in the future. To have it handed to him on a plate at such a tender age was a blessing from Allah himself, though it meant being led by a man who was obviously cartwheeling towards senility.
The seed of a plan popped into Mansour’s head, one that would need to be nurtured, but for the time being he gave his leader the reaction he desired.
“Of course I will take on the challenge,” he smiled. “Tell me what plans you already have in place.”
Chapter 7
Friday May 4th 2012
“I’m bored!”
Alana Levine sat with her arms folded, staring at the caravan floor. “Wish I could have brought my iPhone.”
Her father was drying dishes in the tiny kitchen area and he slammed down the cup in his hand, smashing it into a dozen pieces. “How many times do I have to tell you?” He snarled.
Sandra Levine grabbed her husband by the arm. “Carl, leave her alone. What do you expect from a thirteen-year-old?”
Carl Levine took a couple of deep breaths before gathering up the shards of porcelain and dumping them in the trash. After getting a look from his wife he went to sit next to his daughter and put an arm around her shoulder.
“I’m sorry, darling, but we couldn’t bring anything that could be traced, I told you that.”
“I know, but I could use it to just play games,” Alana pouted, bottom lip thrust out like a diving board.
Levine sighed. He had been through this a dozen times, explaining how SIM cards could be tracked even when the phone was not in use, and that even without the card it might be possible for those with the right technology to locate the device.
“I’ll make it up to you when this is all over, I promise.”
“But when will that be?” She asked.
Carl Levine didn’t have an answer to that one. A year earlier he had a schedule to keep to, but this time it was simply a case of waiting to hear from his friends. He didn’t have any way of communicating with the outside world, and all the money they had was being spent on food and fuel. While they still had a few hundred pounds between them, the money wasn’t going to last forever. It was a blessing that the caravan they were staying in was owned outright by Tom Gray’s solicitor and the ground rent was being paid by direct debit, otherwise their finances would be stretched even further.
“Hopefully not too long,” Levine said.
“Is it going to be like last time, with the reporters hanging round the house and school?”
Levine promised her that it wouldn’t be a repeat of the previous year, when the press had camped outside their house for a fortnight in the hope of a story. They had even tried to interview his daughter as she entered the school grounds, and the following day he had escorted her to the entrance of the school building. On leaving the playground he’d stopped to speak to the press, but not to give then the story they’d hoped for. Reading from a prepared statement, he’d given them what he considered their final warning.
“Yesterday, several members of the press tried to manhandle and harass my daughter into giving them an interview, something I, as her father, find deeply offensive. I reported this matter to the police and asked them to provide her with an escort every day but they say they don’t have the resources, despite my insisting that adults were laying their hands on my vulnerable child.
“As the police refuse to do anything about this situation, I will be forced to take the matter into my own hands should anyone try to interfere with my daughter on her way to or from school, using all force necessary to protect my child.”
Levine smiled as he remembered that statement going out on all the news channels, with commentators asking why the police were leaving a twelve-year-old girl to the mercy of a mob of reporters, and the anchors quick to point out that none of the reporters worked for their particular franchise. Within a few hours a police escort was arranged for the next few days until the media
eventually gave up their efforts.
“I’m sure it won’t be like last time,” he told her, even though he himself had no idea how it was going to play out. He kissed his daughter on the head and went back to his kitchen duties.
“I think she’s missing her friends,” his wife said, and Levine could quite understand. It wasn’t easy for him, sharing a small space with not only his wife and daughter, but Jeff Campbell and his wife, too. For Alana, it must be doubly difficult, especially with no company her own age to keep her occupied.
He once again hoped that whatever was happening, it would be over soon, for his daughter’s sake if nothing else. When the call had come, the last thing on his mind had been creature comforts, and he certainly hadn’t been expecting to be holed up in this tiny box for more than a couple of days. It was now approaching two weeks, and he still no idea why they had been told to go into hiding.
Campbell was just as concerned, highlighting the fact that during their enforced holiday they hadn’t been mentioned on the BBC news channel. That suggested the police weren’t the ones they were hiding from, but if not the police, then who?
Following the attack a year earlier, and with Tom Gray lying critically injured in hospital, they had been briefed by a representative of the Home Office. He’d explained that the knowledge they had regarding the whole affair — the fact that no bomb existed and that Tom Gray hadn’t actually killed any of his hostages — could be highly embarrassing to the government if it were ever leaked. In return for their silence, the government would allow Tom Gray to be spirited away with a new identity and the six survivors would face no criminal proceedings.
Levine and the others had been given a few minutes to consider the proposal, and on face value it seemed an acceptable offer. It meant staying out of prison, and keeping their mouths shut was second nature to members of Two-Two Regiment.
Gray Redemption (Tom Gray #3) Page 8