Sleeper 13: The most explosive must-read thriller of 2018

by Rob Sinclair

  Aydin wanted those keys.

  He took a lungful of air, then ever so slowly exhaled. He was surprised, and impressed, to note that his heart was calm. He crept forward on his haunches, his bare feet silent on the stone floor, his eyes not once leaving the back of Qarsh’s head. As he got closer to the keys the TV came into view. Aydin’s eyes flicked to it. He remembered watching football with his father back in England, but he’d not seen a game in years. He didn’t recognise who the teams were, but the commentary was in Arabic. For a few seconds he was enthralled by the somewhat simple sight of men kicking a lump of leather around a green field. But he couldn’t just stay there all night.

  He stole his eyes from the screen and looked over to the keys. Two sets. Were they just duplicates or did they have different purposes?

  He decided he wouldn’t take both. Two missing sets was far too suspicious. Best to just grab the nearest ones. Imagine the freedom of having the keys to the Farm.

  He reached out . . .

  Then jumped, and his heart skipped a beat, when Qarsh shouted out in anger. Aydin daren’t even look, as ominous thoughts crashed through his mind, but he soon realised he hadn’t been spotted, it was just the game – one of the teams had scored, judging by the raised octave of the commentator. Apparently it wasn’t Qarsh’s team. Still none of the guards looked round, and Aydin wrapped his fingers around the keys and slowly pulled them up off the hook.

  He had them! He backtracked, his heart no longer calm, though he was sure it was just the rush of adrenaline that caused it to race.

  When he stepped back out into the corridor he locked eyes with Itnashar and held the keys aloft victoriously. Itnashar initially looked shocked, but then his face opened out in amazement.

  Aydin stared at the keys in his hand, then looked down the corridor. The exit was right down there . . .

  Could he do it? Could he just open the door and step out into the night and leave the Farm behind?

  ‘Aydin, come on, we need to finish this now!’ Itnashar hissed, perhaps sensing Aydin’s moment of deliberation.

  Aydin slumped a little at the realisation that he simply wasn’t brave enough to do what his head was willing him to. But then just look at what he’d achieved already.

  He squeezed the keys in his hand and moved back over to Itnashar, then they headed along the corridor back to the door for Wahid and Itnan’s room.

  ‘Which key is it?’ Itnashar said.

  Aydin didn’t answer as he thumbed through the selection. He’d long paid attention to the keychains the guards carried, and he knew the shape of the one that was used for their door – would the same key open the doors for all of the boys’ rooms?

  He found the one he was looking for and stuck it into the lock and turned. It worked.

  ‘Ready?’ Aydin whispered.

  Itnashar nodded and Aydin turned the handle and pulled on the door, which let out a tiny creak as it opened. Inside, the room was black, and Aydin could hear the soft breathing of the sleeping boys.

  ‘Go on then,’ Aydin said to Itnashar.

  Itnashar brushed past him, into the room which Aydin could just about make out from the faint light seeping in from the corridor. He watched as Itnashar slunk up to Wahid’s bed and lifted the device out of his pocket. He pushed his arm forward, under the bed, and took a few seconds as he tried to attach it in place. Now that they were so close to finishing, Aydin could finally feel his nerves building. He was willing Itnashar to just get this part over and done with so they could head back. What the hell was he doing?

  Finally Itnashar pulled his hand back out from under the bed and turned round. Aydin expected to see a smile on his face. Or at the least a look of relief. Instead he looked petrified. Though he wasn’t looking at Aydin; he was looking over Aydin’s shoulder.

  Aydin spun round and was staring into the angry face of Qarsh.

  ‘You stupid little––’

  Qarsh smacked Aydin across the face, causing him to reel back. He grabbed Aydin’s hair and pulled him off his feet. Another guard came forward, turning on lights and rushing forward to grab Itnashar. Wahid and Itnan both shot up in their beds.

  ‘No!’ Aydin pleaded. ‘You don’t understand, it was just a task. Teacher told us to!’

  But Qarsh took no notice. He slapped Aydin across the face again, harder this time, and Aydin fell to the ground. Qarsh lifted his boot and drove it into Aydin’s gut, knocking the wind from him and causing his vision to blur.

  There was shouting all around. Itnashar was flung forward and crashed into a heap by Aydin’s side.

  ‘You two will pay for this,’ Qarsh spat.

  ‘Please,’ Aydin pleaded. ‘We were told to spy. It was just a task. Ask the Teacher. Please!’

  Qarsh smashed his boot into Aydin’s gut again and it was an effort for him to fight to stay conscious. When his vision returned he looked beyond Qarsh and saw the looming figure of the Teacher.

  ‘Tell him!’ Aydin shouted. ‘You told us to spy. We didn’t do anything wrong.’

  Qarsh stepped to the side and the Teacher, clearly pissed off at having been disturbed, came forward into the room. Aydin pulled himself up onto his side. The Teacher looked around, then turned to the two boys on the floor.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Under the bed,’ Aydin said.

  The Teacher moved over to Wahid’s bed and hunched down and stuck his hand under. He rummaged about for a few seconds then tugged and his hand came back out holding on to the device.

  ‘It’s a microphone,’ Itnashar said. ‘With a radio transmitter.’

  ‘You made this?’ the Teacher asked.

  ‘You asked us to spy!’ Aydin said again, for which he received another clip around the head from Qarsh.

  The Teacher said nothing to Aydin. He turned to Wahid, his pet, who was looking more sheepish than Aydin had ever seen him look before. The Teacher said nothing to him, though Aydin could sense his disappointment. But then the Teacher turned back to Aydin and Itnashar again and Aydin wished he could shrink away to nothing.

  ‘You broke out of your room?’ the Teacher said. ‘And into here? How?’

  Aydin pulled out the forks. ‘These,’ he said. Then he lifted up the keys. ‘And these.’

  The Teacher pursed his lips and nodded – was that a sign of satisfaction?

  ‘You took the keys?’ he said to Aydin, before looking to Qarsh, who looked stunned all of a sudden.

  Aydin just nodded.

  ‘Very good. I’m impressed,’ the Teacher said, though his tone didn’t at all match the words. He strode back towards the door. Aydin felt himself cower away. ‘But you failed.’

  ‘No!’ Aydin shouted.

  ‘You were caught. It was all wasted because you got caught. You failed. Take them both away.’

  As both Aydin and Itnashar shouted and begged, Qarsh reached forward and grabbed Aydin by his hair again. He tugged hard and dragged him away. The last thing Aydin saw before they were out in the corridor was the snide grin on Wahid’s face.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  ‘I know it wasn’t you,’ Itnashar said again, though Aydin wasn’t sure why he bothered. He knew Aydin hadn’t killed his own mother? Well, what a genius.

  The British police too, surely, would know that Aydin hadn’t killed her either, if they actually knew Aydin’s true identity and that he was the victim’s son. But they didn’t know his identity, at least not according to the article he was reading. The set-up by his brothers was simply to add pressure on him. He was already being hunted by his people, and now he had the British police, and maybe very soon Interpol, on his case too.

  Which planted a seed of doubt in his mind. What did his brothershave to gain from the deception? If the British police caught up with him, they’d simply haul him into jail, wouldn’t they? Where was the benefit to his people in that?

  Unless . . . Just how far did their reach now spread?

  He couldn’t rule out that the British police and the intelligen
ce services had been infiltrated at some level, and he shivered at the thought.

  Itnashar took the tablet back from him.

  ‘Like I said, you can’t stay here,’ he said. ‘Even if you do the right thing now and prove that you want to get back on side with Wahid, you being here could blow everything open. I can’t afford for the police to come knocking on my door.’

  ‘I understand,’ Aydin said. ‘I’ll go. But I need something from you first.’

  The way in which he said it made Itnashar squirm, and Aydin could tell that, for the first time, his brother sensed the threat in the man standing before him.

  ‘Tell me what it is,’ Itnashar said.

  Before Aydin could answer there was a soft electronic chime, coming from over by the door to the apartment. Itnashar’s eyes flicked to where the noise came from, but Aydin’s stayed fixed on his brother.

  ‘It’s Haroun,’ Itnashar said. ‘You have to go.’

  Aydin stepped back, increasing the space between him and his closest companion to a safer distance, and then turned his gaze to the small monitor mounted next to the door frame. Sure enough he saw the dark figure of a man stepping through the entrance doorway. There was another single bleep as the door closed behind him.

  In the corner of his eye Aydin saw Itnashar moving towards him. Aydin was ready to attack, but he quickly saw as he turned back that Itnashar had his open hands up to his chest to show he wasn’t a threat.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, moving for the door. ‘Go up the stairs. When Haroun’s inside, you go back down and out.’

  ‘What if he sees me on the monitor?’

  ‘Why would he look? Just keep your head down. You could be anyone.’

  Itnashar pulled open the door without making a sound.

  ‘We’re not done,’ Aydin said quietly.

  ‘Go now,’ Itnashar whispered. ‘Meet me at six p.m. at Markt. It’s busy, you’ll feel safe there. There’s an Italian cafe called Gino’s on the Eastern corner. Somewhere near there.’

  Before Aydin could either protest or agree, Itnashar shoved him towards the open door. Aydin didn’t resist. He didn’t need the fight with both Itnashar and Haroun.

  He walked out and moved up the staircase, not risking taking a peek below to see how far away Haroun was. He bounced softly up the stairs, his springy knees and the rubber of his trainers allowing him to move silently. As he turned a hundred and eighty degrees with the staircase he looked back down below to see the door to Itnashar’s apartment was shut again. He hadn’t heard the door close at all. Further below Aydin could hear the plodding of Haroun’s feet as he headed up the stairs.

  When he reached the top of the staircase, two floors up from Itnashar’s apartment, Aydin pulled up against the far wall. There were two apartment doors in front of him. He could hear noises from behind both. A baby crying, its mother singing a soft lullaby to try and calm it. From the other he could hear a TV. There was no indication that anyone up there had been alerted to his presence.

  He refocused his hearing to Haroun’s footsteps. They stopped. He heard a key in a lock, then the clicking and creaking as the handle was pressed down and the door pushed open. There was a soft thud as the door closed again and then all was silent down below.

  Not a second later, though, Aydin’s attention was grabbed by the noise coming from the apartment right next to him. The baby’s cries were getting louder and he could hear footsteps beyond the door. Whoever was in there was coming out. Had the mother heard him outside, or were they leaving anyway?

  As he heard locks clicking, Aydin spun away from his position and glided down the stairs. He was several steps down before he heard the door open and the cries of the baby growing louder still. He didn’t look back up, just kept on going down. He didn’t slow at all as he passed Itnashar’s front door, though his hand did brush against his hip, feeling the hard form of the gun that was stashed there.

  No need to draw it. There was no sudden ambush. Not this time.

  He continued down, taking a momentary glance up at the ceiling as he reached the ground floor, looking to where the camera that Itnashar had a feed for must be located. He couldn’t see it, but there was an air-conditioning duct up there where he must have stashed it. He moved his head down again as he entered the camera’s field of vision. He pushed open the door at the front of the building and exited onto the cobbled alley.

  Outside in the fresh air Aydin looked left and right before he moved away. He quickly spotted the candidate he was looking for. It was perfect. The other buildings opposite Itnashar’s were too close, but the twisting alley meant there was an apartment block less than a hundred yards back towards the canal whose frontage had an almost direct view back to where he was standing.

  He moved off in that direction, keeping his head low. He checked the time. Not quite one p.m. so he had a few hours before the hastily arranged rendezvous. It hadn’t escaped his mind that the whole thing was most likely a set-up. He needed the few hours to decide what to do.

  As he walked along the alley he fished in his pocket for the wireless earbud. He flicked the tiny switch to the on position then put the bud into his ear. The battery should last at least until the planned meeting later on.

  He took out the new phone he’d purchased in an electronics shop in Bruges just before he’d headed to Itnashar’s apartment. There was a decent 4G signal in the city and he’d already managed to download the app he needed to connect to the tiny microphone that he’d just placed down the side of Itnashar’s sofa.

  He checked in the Bluetooth menu that the earbud was connected to the phone. It was. He’d earlier spent a good chunk of the cash he had on the various pieces of spy equipment, most of which were now stashed in the backpack slung over his shoulders, but it was worth it. He was on his own for this mission and needed all the help he could get, and he would eke out every advantage he could, however he could.

  He didn’t know why, but he held his breath as he turned the volume up one notch at a time. There was a chance it wouldn’t work, that he’d made a mistake or that the equipment was simply sub-standard, but then the silence in his ear was soon replaced by crackly static.

  Moments later, above the crackling, he heard muffled voices. He turned the volume up two more notches, frowning as he listened. He could pick out the tone of Itnashar’s voice, and that of a second man – Haroun? The reception was too muffled though to clearly hear their words. Then a third, more distant voice crackled into his ear.

  They were speaking to someone else, someone not in the apartment. Wahid? The Teacher?

  Of course Aydin immediately suspected the worst. That his closest friend was already stabbing him in the back even as he walked the few yards away from the apartment. But a part of him thought – hoped – that perhaps they were just making a routine progress report. Or maybe the third person had contacted them.

  Unfortunately the microphone reception simply wasn’t good enough for Aydin to make out the conversation in any detail, save for the odd word here and there. Certainly he heard no mention of his own name.

  He cursed himself under his breath. Back at the Farm he and Itnashar had been such a good team. Aydin was creative and stealthy and ballsy. Itnashar on the other hand could fashion just about any piece of electronic equipment a person could imagine. Aydin had no doubt that in minutes his brother would have been able to cobble together better working devices than the ones he’d just bought. But that had never been Aydin’s core skill, and he’d had no choice but to opt for the cheapest miniature microphone the store offered. Despite his stealthy move, in an effort to conceal the device he’d possibly wedged it too far into the sofa’s crevices for it to pick up any audio.

  He couldn’t change it now, though.

  Frustrated at what felt like a blown opportunity, Aydin reached the building he was heading for and took a look around outside. No sign of anyone following behind him. He moved over to a souvenir shop a few yards away and rummaged through the racks of postcar
ds on the stand outside. From there he was out of view from Itnashar’s building, and he had the front door of number twenty-four in his sights.

  Luckily he didn’t have to wait long. As he continued to listen to the distorted conversation in his ear, he saw the blue door of the building open, and out stepped a young man, early twenties and scruffily dressed. With a set of big can-like headphones over his ears he was oblivious to everything around him as he walked away, and the door behind him slowly swung closed.

  Aydin waited until the last second before he darted forward and slipped through the narrowing gap and into the building.

  The interior was gloomy, with no natural light, and it was cold. It was quiet too, and he neither saw nor heard any signs of anyone else. He moved over to the bare stone staircase and made his way up. He’d seen from the outside that the building had five floors, but he’d also noticed that unlike many others around, this one had a flat roof. He didn’t know if there was a roof garden up there or if the roof just had access for maintenance, but that was where he was headed.

  As he reached the fifth floor he saw there was just one apartment door there, and no more staircase leading up, and he had to concede that the roof was likely a private terrace for the building’s penthouse. He was there now, though, and willing to do whatever was needed. If he had to gain entry to the apartment forcibly and subdue whoever was inside, then so be it.

  But then he realised that wouldn’t be necessary, and there was no doubt that was a relief. Tucked away in the corner was a bland white painted door with a security bar across it. He moved over to it and pushed the bar down. As he slowly swung the door open he wondered whether doing so might trigger an alarm, but once again he needn’t have worried. He was greeted only by silence and a narrow staircase. He moved up the stairs and came to another similar door at the top. He opened that one and stepped out onto a rolled lead roof that looked unused. There was a brick wall around the outer edge, less than three feet high, and he crouched down as he scuttled across the top towards the north side of the building.