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

by Rob Sinclair

  ‘Do you have anything on their plans? When, where and what the possible attacks might look like?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but no. You said you believed your persons of interest to be plotting attacks in Western Europe. I’ll make this absolutely clear to you – we have no firm evidence so far that that is the case, though it would normally take us many days if not weeks to find such conclusive evidence.’

  ‘I understand that.’

  ‘However, we do have reams of data tracking the people we’ve identified – some thirty people now and counting – both over our active time period, and going back in time. That includes CCTV and satellite imagery of their movements, telecommunications and other electronic communications. Using what we’ve found, we’ve also linked in to historic data of these people’s identities. Most telling is what we’ve found on Ismail Obbadi.’

  Cox’s heart raced in anticipation.

  ‘Apparently he’s a Moroccan national, and although his identity is registered in all the right places, we’re struggling to piece together his full history. Family, where he was brought up, schools etc.’

  ‘Meaning the identity may actually be bogus?’

  ‘Meaning we don’t yet know. But we’ll keep digging. What I would say is that this guy certainly isn’t afraid to get his face in the papers. It didn’t really require Trapeze’s firepower to find pictures of him and his girlfriend wining and dining in Italy’s capital.’

  Cox wasn’t sure whether that comment was a dig at her.

  ‘Any links between Obbadi and Turkey?’ Cox asked. ‘Or to Aydin Torkal or the others we identified?’

  ‘Yes to the first question, no to the second. There are various money trails that we’re still following but more than one of them does pass through Turkey. We’ve not yet found the purposes of these transactions, or in many cases the original source or end beneficiary. However, the trails do largely appear to relate to assets controlled by Obbadi, or to parties who are involved with his businesses.’

  ‘I need details of those transactions. Of the assets, of the names of his business partners too.’

  ‘You’ll get it all.’

  The finding was potentially huge. If Obbadi was directly involved, he could be bankrolling the activity of the others in cities across Europe. If she followed the money, it might lead to addresses, locations, and to each of the members of the Thirteen.

  Was Obbadi even one of them?

  ‘Have you found anything to link Kamil Torkal to that activity?’

  ‘Other than the fact he’s in Turkey, nothing at all. In fact, from the limited information we’ve returned on Torkal, I’d say he’s not linked to your other persons of interest at all.’

  Cox sighed. She was certain Kamil hadn’t given her a truthful account of what had happened to his brother and Aydin.

  ‘One other thing,’ Poulter continued. ‘Obbadi has now left Rome, and last we knew he was heading across the Mediterranean on a yacht. Last night Obbadi, from that yacht, was involved in a multi-participant VoIP call. We know that call took place, however we weren’t able to intercept the communication itself.’

  ‘What do you mean last we knew?’

  ‘I was just coming to that. The most alarming thing, however, is what happened almost immediately after that call. At midnight, Central European Time, to be precise.’

  ‘Which is what?’

  ‘To put it simply, absolutely nothing.’

  ‘Nothing? As in––’

  ‘As in every single one of our persons of interest has been dark since then.’

  ‘Dark even to Trapeze? But that would mean––’

  ‘That means, Miss Cox, that these people are incredibly careful, and knowledgeable in surveillance techniques. As far as we’re able to see, these people may as well have now dropped off the face of the earth.’

  Cox thought for a minute. ‘This was probably all caused because of Aydin Torkal. He’s tracking the others down. I don’t know why he’s doing that, but he’s done enough to seriously spook them. Maybe they’ve dropped off the grid in response? Or maybe . . . they’re getting ready to attack.’

  Poulter went silent. Was that agreement?

  ‘And you don’t even know where Obbadi went?’ Cox continued. ‘He was on a boat in the Mediterranean and just disappeared?’

  ‘It’s a pretty big place.’

  Cox said nothing to that. She was too busy thinking still. ‘Is there anything else? Anything from Germany?’

  ‘We’ve identified your man in the white van. Goes by various bogus aliases and we don’t know his real name or origins, but we believe he is part of your group, and has been referred to as Sab’ah.’

  Cox felt like giving herself a high five. ‘Number seven. And what about the cyanide?’

  ‘Nothing we’ve seen references cyanide, or any details about any imminent attack, for that matter. In terms of headline useful and credible evidence, I’ve given you all I have. We will of course forward you fuller details of the various parties. Names, historical addresses where possible, what we’ve identified.’

  ‘Absolutely. Please do.’

  ‘I’m sorry we haven’t been able to provide you with anything more conclusive.’

  ‘But you will keep searching?’

  ‘Of course. And I’ll pass the findings on to Henry Flannigan too,’ Poulter said. ‘Speak later.’

  There was a click as Poulter left the call, and Cox winced at the parting comment. Poulter had no way of knowing the damage that would be caused once Flannigan found out what Cox had done. Cox just had to hope that Poulter’s findings would be enough to defuse him. Otherwise she could kiss her career goodbye – and, more than likely, her freedom too.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Aydin encountered no more setbacks on his journey through Turkey to Istanbul. The knife wounds on his arm and leg looked no closer to healing. Proper medical attention was required – antibiotics, antivirals – but turning up to a hospital was out of the question. The other option was that he stole the drugs he needed himself, but he hadn’t become that desperate. Yet.

  Instead he dressed and re-dressed the wounds with basic supplies from various pharmacies, and the antiseptic had at least stopped the wounds becoming deeply infected. He’d filled his body with all manner of painkillers, copious amounts of caffeine and some cheap lab-created opiate he’d purchased from a street dealer in a less than salubrious part of the city. In big cities, such people weren’t hard to find, if you knew what you were looking for.

  Sitting at an Egyptian cafe on the European side of the city, the deep blue of the calm Sea of Marmara directly across the road, his heart beat erratically, and his body felt oddly distant. Persevering was the only option – if he stopped, the hounds would close in and do everything they could to finish him off. It was down to him to get to them first.

  The weather in Istanbul wasn’t making him feel any better. Not only was it hot as hell but it was humid too; the sky thick with cloud, the salty air wet and suffocating.

  He took his time and eventually finished the aish baladi and water and left some coins on the table. A motorbike had cost him one hundred US dollars earlier that morning in northern Turkey – a twenty-year-old machine that somehow ran as smoothly as any other vehicle he’d been on the last few days. As he perched on the worn leather seat, the engine grumbled to life, and he pulled out onto the wide carriageway that ran along the coast.

  He was confident of where he was going.

  Aydin’s family had come to Istanbul when he was a child, and some of his most cherished childhood memories were of the four of them in their native country. And it was his family roots that had brought him back once again: he knew his sister had visited in the last few months. Wahid too had been, given the stamp Aydin had found in Wahid’s German passport. Aydin didn’t know why either of them had come, but it was a lead.

  The encryption on Itnashar’s laptop was solid. But, for the first time, Wahid had been careless. Aydin found the encrypti
on key contained within hidden files on the thumb drive stolen from Wahid’s bedroom. After all, Wahid needed the key to decipher encrypted documents sent to him regularly by Itnashar and the other brothers.

  On the long journey to come, Aydin would see everything Itnashar knew of the plan. It wasn’t everything, but it was significantly more than Aydin had been told. Plus, it had already given him a much more conclusive link to Istanbul, and to one man in particular.

  It was time to pay a visit to his uncle.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Two hours after the call with Poulter, Cox pulled the rental car to a stop outside the gates to Kamil Torkal’s home. Her phone had been buzzing in her handbag the whole way there, though she’d not yet been able to bring herself to answer it, certain it was Flannigan calling, and she wasn’t ready to have that conversation with him.

  Before she wound down the window to press on the intercom, Cox let out a long sigh then reluctantly took the phone out of her bag and scrolled through the notifications. Seven missed calls. One voicemail. As expected it was from Flannigan. As expected he sounded like he was halfway up the wall as he yelled down the line. The message was short, but far from sweet.

  Cox’s finger hovered over the call-back button. Thinking better of it, she put the phone on her lap, wound the window down and pressed on the intercom’s buzzer. The little box chimed away for a few seconds. No answer. She frowned and pressed the button again but only got the exact same response.

  This was all she needed. At the very least she’d hoped to be able to use her time in Istanbul productively before Flannigan shipped her off to jail. She hadn’t pre-arranged to meet Kamil Torkal this time round, hoping to catch him more off guard. That plan seemed to have backfired already.

  The phone once again vibrated. As much as she’d rather have nails driven through her eyelids, she found herself picking the phone back up and accepting the call.

  ‘You stupid, crazy––’

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘Have you any idea how much shit you’re in?’

  ‘Actually, kind of, yeah. I’m sorry, sir.’

  Flannigan went silent and Cox knew it was best to just give him a few moments to defuse.

  ‘Something’s happening here, sir. And whatever it is, it’s coming soon,’ Cox said, when she heard his breaths slowing, hoping to pre-empt his next barrage. ‘You have to see that now.’

  ‘I’m not sure exactly what I see,’ Flannigan said, sounding only moderately pissed off. Quite a result, Cox felt.

  ‘I told you – the Thirteen are real. Based on the intel I gave them, Trapeze have identified nearly all of the men I believe form the group. And located some of them too. We have names, faces, addresses––’

  ‘No, Cox,’ Flannigan bit back. ‘We did have all that. Until each and every one of those men went dark. And it’s highly possible that they went dark because of your antics. They realised they were under surveillance.’

  ‘That’s rubbish! They couldn’t possibly have kno––’

  ‘If they’re as sophisticated as you’ve been saying they are then of course they could have bloody known. You may well have sent them underground for good.’

  ‘That’s not it at all. We’ve finally made progress in identifying the whole group. And those dead bodies in Germany? The guy driving away from the scene is Sab’ah. Number seven. He’s one of them.’

  Cox gave Flannigan a few moments to take that one in. She hoped for a response. She realised none was coming.

  ‘I don’t think they’ve gone into hiding. I think they’re getting ready to attack.’

  ‘Cox, you don’t even know they have a plan to attack! This is still completely hypothetical.’

  ‘I know you don’t really believe that.’

  ‘What I believe is that, as well as the dire consequences for your life and career, your gung-ho tactics may have scared these guys off. We may never find them now.’

  ‘No, sir. I don’t believe that at all. I think even if they know we’re on to them they don’t care. They’ve planned too well, they’ve been setting this up for years. And they’re too close to their goal now. They’ve gone dark because the attacks are coming.’

  Flannigan fell silent again and while Cox gave him time to compose his comeback, she once again pressed on the intercom. Still no answer. She stepped from the car and approached the metal gates. There was a small gap where the two gates met and Cox pressed her eye to it, peering past the gravel drive to the villa beyond. The view through was far from clear, but she was sure she could see a car parked up on the drive – the same car Torkal’s wife had returned home in the last time Cox had visited. There hadn’t been a second car at the house that day so someone was home.

  ‘The simple fact is we just don’t know,’ Flannigan eventually said. ‘But I agree that it would be a big risk to ignore what we’ve found.’ Cox said nothing about his use of we. ‘We’ll have to work with the other countries on this one, in order to raid each of those locations. The evidence isn’t strong enough for us to get clearance to take this on ourselves. Can you imagine the political fallout if our black ops teams swarm over each of those cities? Especially if they find nothing.’

  ‘Sir, any delay now could be catastrophic.’

  ‘There’s no other way, Cox. You should be happy with this. With local co-operation we’ll do our best to organise raids for each of the addresses Trapeze has given us for your Thirteen.’

  Cox breathed a sigh of relief at her small victory, as she walked from the gates and over to where the white perimeter wall headed off into the dense foliage.

  ‘Don’t sound so relieved, Cox,’ Flannigan scoffed. ‘Now I’m going to try and help you, because I get why you did this, and I do . . . care about you.’ He coughed awkwardly. ‘But Miles is going to be far less amenable, trust me on that. He’s got the politicos hounding him over this already and regardless of what we find down the line, he’s going to need a scapegoat.’

  ‘I get it.’

  ‘Like I said, I’ll try to help you, but I can’t make any promises.’

  ‘I appreciate that.’

  ‘But you need to stand down.’

  ‘What––’

  ‘You will stand down! Now. Gather your things and head back to Istanbul airport. You’ll be met there by an agent who will escort you back to London. Don’t do anything stupid. Or, more aptly, don’t do anything else stupid.’

  But Cox barely heard him, focused as she was on the villa, tracing the wall with her eyes into the thick green where a glint of light sparkled through the gently flapping leaves. Doubling back, she reached into the car and grabbed the handgun from her bag. With the phone still pressed to her ear she clambered through the undergrowth.

  ‘Cox, for Christ’s sake, are you even listening to me?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ll come back. Just as soon as I can.’

  ‘No, not as soon as you can. Now!’

  Cox pushed her way further through. A gust of wind blew through the branches in front of her revealing a glimpse of shining black metal.

  ‘Don’t screw me, Cox. Or you can forget about my help.’

  ‘I’m not messing you about, sir.’

  Cox lifted a branch, stooped beneath it, and there, concealed in the foliage, was a motorbike. She looked around. The road was yards behind. The bike had very deliberately been pulled through the foliage, and pressed snug to the wall.

  The engine was still hot.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said, and ended the call before Flannigan could shout back.

  Cox crouched low as she made her way silently through the Torkals’ garden. The bike, positioned where it was, proved the perfect leg-up to help her over the wall – someone else had had the same idea and, given the heat of the engine, only minutes earlier.

  The gun gripped in both hands as she moved, she soon came out onto a gravel driveway. Avoiding the noisy stones underfoot she moved towards the front of the villa.

  The front door was ajar.
/>   She stopped dead. Should she call the local police? But what would she tell them? No. It was too much of a coincidence, surely. She had to know if this was all connected.

  The house was quiet beyond the threshold, the whir of ceiling fans and the gentle whistle of the breeze the only sounds she could make out.

  As quietly as she could, Cox used the barrel of the handgun to push the front door open – the hinges giving the slightest of creaks as she did so.

  Still nothing.

  She stepped into the cool of the terracotta-tiled hallway. Only then, with the tepid air on her skin, did she realise her blouse was sticking to her chest and back, damp from the humidity outside – or was it her nerves? – and sending a shiver through her entire body.

  A quick check of each room leading off the hallway revealed nothing.

  The final doorway led onto a narrow corridor, the opposite side of the house to where she’d been the last time. Bedrooms perhaps?

  Drops of liquid dotted the floor and, slowly, Cox knelt down and touched one of them with the tip of her finger. On the terracotta floor she hadn’t been able to tell what it was, but the red of blood on her skin was unmistakable.

  Cox straightened up and for a couple of seconds felt faint from the rush of oxygen to her brain caused by her racing heart. When the feeling had dimmed she moved down the corridor. A creak, then a soft bang emanated from one of the doorways ahead.

  Cox picked up her pace, feeling more confident in her movements. She passed two open doors, one on her left, one on the right, with only a moment’s hesitation at each. Then she heard a murmur. A stifled moan. Both sounds came from the room at the end of the corridor. She couldn’t tell if the sounds were made by a man or a woman. Or both.