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

by Rob Sinclair

  When Aydin next opened his eyes the crash of the helicopter’s rotors and engine was still filling his ears, but everything somehow seemed calmer and more serene. His body was leaning to the right, suspended in mid-air by the chain connecting his wrists to his ankles, which remained secured underneath the bench. Pulling himself upright, a crick in his neck stabbed from where his head had been hanging.

  The darkness was gone, and the deep blue water stretched out below, long shadows rippling on the waves as the sun set in the distance. The sky was full of orange, tinged with red. Across the open cabin were the same two men who’d dragged him out of the MI6 safe house in Turkey. They were wearing non-designated military fatigues, big black boots, utility belts crammed with equipment. Each was casually holding an M4 carbine.

  Aydin looked past them, into the cockpit. He could only see the backs of the two men; one was in standard fatigues with a white crash helmet on. The pilot, Aydin guessed. The other man was more casually dressed, and while Aydin didn’t know his name, he had seen him in the safe house, outside the doorway, in the moments before he’d been dragged out. Cox’s boss from MI6? As if sensing Aydin was awake, the man turned and locked eyes with him. Aydin saw nothing but anger and hate as he stared.

  What did the man see in him?

  ‘Are you okay?’ came Cox’s voice. She was shouting as loudly as she could, her voice only just audible above the roar of the helicopter.

  Aydin turned to see her looking somewhere between concerned and relieved. The microphone of her headset was pushed to the side, away from her mouth.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked again. ‘You passed out. I think you hyperventilated. We’ll leave the gag out and the hood off. For now.’

  Aydin nodded. He wasn’t sure why; he should have given her nothing. But there was something about Rachel Cox. She wasn’t like the others. For one thing, she didn’t look at him as though he was pure scum.

  She pulled the microphone back into position and began a conversation that Aydin couldn’t hear. The two grunts weren’t speaking, and when Aydin looked over to Cox’s boss he could see the muscles of his jaw tensing and relaxing as he and Cox continued their exchange. The boss caught Aydin’s eye for a moment. Cox was now looking more than a little bit pissed off. It wasn’t hard to figure how that conversation just went. The boss wanted Aydin to be their plaything, thinking that the worse they treated him, the more likely he was to talk. The impression he got was that Cox at least wanted to treat him like a human.

  ‘How much longer?’ Aydin yelled to her.

  The darkening blue of the Med below would soon give way to the rising form of land now visible in the distance.

  ‘Please don’t tell me you need the toilet!’ Cox shouted back, once again lifting her microphone out of the way. Aydin didn’t respond to her quip. ‘Not long,’ she said, looking slightly embarrassed. ‘Half an hour or so.’

  Aydin noticed that the two grunts were both now glaring at him. One was giving his best evil eye, though the other looked faintly amused.

  ‘You have to help me, Aydin,’ Cox said, leaning a little closer to him. He kept his eyes on the men in front. She was still shouting, but there was no way the others could hear her. ‘Please. Promise me you’ll do the right thing.’

  Aydin had expected to see pleading doe eyes. Instead he was faced with a look of steely determination. Even though he didn’t know exactly what she’d meant, the command of her words led Aydin to nod in agreement.

  She pushed the microphone back over her mouth, pointed out towards the line of land in the distance and struck up a conversation with the others. The eyes of the two commandos followed her pointing finger. Aydin had no idea what she was saying, but it was clear to him that it was a simple subterfuge, because after a couple of seconds her right hand sprang out to him and he reflexively twisted his wrist and opened his hand as she dropped an object into his palm. Her hand whipped back onto her leg as he clasped his fingers around the hairgrip she’d passed him.

  Aydin’s heart raced as the men turned their attention back to him and he did his best to show no reaction.

  He didn’t dare look at Cox, though he could hear that she was still talking away. Once again the men looked to where she was pointing. Aydin quickly worked away on the lock on his wrists. He’d practised releasing himself from cuffs hundreds of times. He’d been able to do it within seconds when he was only twelve years old. Before the men even looked back he’d already released the simple lock, though he left the cuffs in place, over his wrists. The trickiest part would be releasing his ankles. He needed a bigger distraction to achieve that and would bide his time.

  The conversation around him stopped. He knew Cox had eyes on him but he resisted the temptation to look back. Instead he just waited.

  Soon after, he was given the chance.

  He felt the jolt as the helicopter banked left and began to descend. With the helicopter’s movement, he found himself sliding across the bench. He saw the men in front tensing and pulling as they tried to keep to their rigid positions. With Aydin’s backside already sliding he flung his weight further to the left and slammed into Cox, digging his elbow into her ribs. She’d given him this chance – why, he didn’t know – but until he escaped she was still a threat. Cox doubled over from the blow, and Aydin sprang up as best as he was able to with his ankles secured to the bench. He couldn’t move his feet forward more than a few inches, but with his hands free it was enough to reach out and grab at the M4 of the grunt directly in front of him before the guy had figured out what was going on – after all, he’d had no idea Aydin’s hands were now free.

  Aydin snatched the gun, turned it and fired a shot that blasted through the toes of the soldier’s black boot. Blood burst up out of the hole and he screamed and writhed as he went for his sidearm. Aydin had just enough leverage to swipe the M4’s butt across his head. He was out.

  The second grunt was moving his heavy weapon towards Aydin, but he didn’t have enough time; the momentum from Aydin hitting the first guy was already pulling the M4 into position. Aydin held down the trigger and automatic gunfire rattled. Several bullets smacked into his opponent’s Kevlar vest, his body jolting with each strike. It was possible at such close range that at least one of the bullets would pass through the supposedly bulletproof material, but the vest would still be enough to seriously slow the bullets and potentially save him from what would otherwise be certain death.

  Either way, the sheer force of the rapid gunfire was enough to subdue him for as long as Aydin needed.

  Just then Aydin saw a glint of black metal out of the corner of his eye. A handgun. Would Cox actually shoot him, having given him this chance? Or was it all just part of her charade?

  Aydin couldn’t take the chance. He launched himself at her again and this time his elbow caught her in the face. Her gun flew from her grip and out of the cabin. With all three of them temporarily subdued, Aydin fell back onto the bench and ducked down, quickly released the lock on his ankles, then pulled the chains free. When he straightened back up he saw Cox’s boss glaring at him from the cockpit – armed, and twisting the gun round. Aydin reached forward for the nearest grunt, grabbed him around the neck and pulled him in close, cover from the boss’s gun.

  ‘I knew what you were,’ Cox’s boss spat, his disgust clear. ‘Once a terrorist, always a terrorist.’

  ‘No,’ Aydin said. ‘I’m your last hope.’

  He shoved the grunt forward, aiming to topple him into the boss, then dived to his right, grabbing the strap of a parachute from under then bench as he went. He didn’t know if Cox’s boss fired at him or not as his body slammed painfully against the edge of the cabin and he tumbled out, sending him into a clumsy spin as he cascaded towards the water below.

  Hurtling at frightening speed towards the sea, he grappled with the backpack, trying to release the chute. He managed to sling the straps around his shoulders but the release button was stuck. Air rushed against his face, his eyes welled up from
the battering of air making it impossible to see clearly, though he was sure he was only seconds from crashing into the water.

  He pushed again and again on the release button as his body twisted around and around in the air, out of control. Finally it worked, and Aydin felt the jerk as the chute launched. No time for relief. As he looked up, he saw the fabric was twisted around the lines, not even half of the chute properly unfurled. And there was nothing else Aydin could do.

  He tried his best to set himself straight just a second before his body crashed into the water, the impact like his body had smacked into concrete, and he was soon floundering underneath, trying to get his battered body under control.

  As his arms and legs flailed about hopelessly, he fought the urge to gasp – knowing that inhaling the water would be a fatal move. Finally he found his sense of direction, and pushed and kicked with everything he had to try to get back up to the surface. His lungs burned, his heavy body ached, but somehow he managed it. He shot up to the surface and sucked in a huge breath that made his lungs sting even more and sent his head into another spin. It took him a few seconds, and a few more shallow breaths, to regain clarity of mind.

  He expected to see the helicopter circling above, the M4s trained on the water waiting to cut him into pieces. Instead he saw a line of black smoke across the now purple-pink sky. He followed the trail to the helicopter – damaged by a stray bullet perhaps? – already fading into the distance, heading towards the setting sun.

  He heaved a sigh of relief, which was quickly followed by an ominous shiver. The reality was that he was far from home and dry. He had no idea where he was, or how to get where to where he needed.

  But he was alive.

  There wasn’t much time, but he’d do whatever he could to get to Wahid before it was too late. He had to stop his brothers – for his sister, his mother. Because he was sure now that was what they’d want him to do.

  It was time to finally prove his worth.

  SIXTY-ONE

  Gibraltar, Iberian Peninsula

  ‘Cox, wake up, damn it!’

  Cox bolted upright, feeling the twinge in her neck from the uncomfortable position she found herself in. Quite how she’d drifted off sitting on the hard metal chair even she didn’t know, but such was her level of exhaustion.

  ‘What time is it?’ Cox asked, rubbing her neck as she squinted up at Flannigan. He too looked weary and dishevelled.

  ‘Six a.m. Get your shit together, this is no time for catching up on sleep. We’ve got a call with London waiting.’

  He wasn’t hiding the fact that he was seriously pissed off with her. With everything really. He hadn’t yet come out and directly accused her of helping Aydin escape, but she could tell he was thinking that was the case. Even though she had taken an elbow to the ribs and one to the face in the process.

  ‘Of course, sir,’ Cox said, groggily getting to her feet. ‘I think it’s just the concussion that pushed me over the edge.’

  Flannigan just shook his head at that.

  Cox followed her boss as they were escorted through the Portakabin labyrinth of the RAF base, until they came to a meeting room with a large but cheap-looking desk, set up with twelve chairs. Only Cox and Flannigan stayed inside as Flannigan went and sat down and dialled into the conference call on the room’s star phone.

  ‘Back to basics, eh?’ Cox said, taking a seat across the large desk from her boss.

  ‘We don’t have time for anything better,’ Flannigan said, which Cox took to mean they were ignoring the risk that this room and the line could be in some way compromised. She could understand the urgency though. Although they were on UK soil, this wasn’t an SIS site and it wasn’t kitted out for their needs. But there were surely only hours left until it was game over. After that the attacks would begin. Where and how, they still had no clue, but they had to push on and do everything they could to find out the answers.

  Over the last few hours there’d been several briefings given to politicians and to the security services in the various countries thought to be targets, but not a single arrest had been made, and all of the Thirteen – other than Itnashar, who was now slowly rotting in a morgue in Belgium – were still roaming the streets as free men. Aydin Torkal included. The German authorities were the most prepared for an attack, but had so far had no success either in identifying the intended target or in locating the cyanide that everyone now believed would form part of the attack there.

  Cox looked over to her boss as he punched in the numbers for the call. The pissed-off look had remained on his face for hours on end now. After Aydin escaped from the helicopter, Flannigan had ranted and blasted for a good half hour at the poor helicopter pilot, whose only focus had been on getting the damaged craft to safety, and saving himself and the others onboard from crashing into the Mediterranean. Flannigan had seemed oblivious to that risk, only concerned with waiting for Aydin to surface so they could shoot him dead.

  What would that have achieved, anyway?

  They’d landed safely in Algeria, albeit some distance short of their destination at Zed site. Pretty soon the local police had descended and taken them into custody. It wouldn’t have been long before a mini-political fallout ensued as Cox was sure the Algerians would have brought them up on espionage charges for landing in the middle of their country unannounced like that. It had taken quite a bit of work to get themselves not just released, but with onward transport out of the country. They’d had to pull in favours with the French DGSE to achieve that, who in turn had negotiated with the Algerian DRS to provide Cox and Flannigan, their pilot and the two injured contractors, safe harbour onward to British soil at Gibraltar.

  In the end they’d not stepped foot anywhere near Zed site, which Cox was quite glad about. Without Aydin there was nothing at the black site that could help them, and Gibraltar was not just safe territory, but was much closer to where the imminent attacks would take place. But the timer was edging closer and closer to zero, and they still had next to nothing to work with.

  ‘Have you got a problem, sir?’ Cox said, returning her boss’s glare, feeling herself becoming riled by his persistent death stare.

  ‘I’ve got lots of problems, Cox. Number one being I’m still mulling over how that bastard escaped from us like that.’ He spoke through gritted teeth and it wasn’t hard to see who his anger was directed at. Blips were coming from the phone’s speaker as the call waited to connect.

  ‘I’ve been telling you all along how highly trained the Thirteen are,’ Cox said. ‘These aren’t just brainwashed losers. You saw yourself how quick Torkal was. He’s put two highly trained soldiers in hospital. It’s a miracle we’re both still standing.’ Cox rubbed the bruise on her face for effect. ‘There was nothing we could do.’

  Flannigan opened his mouth to respond when the call connected – a hiss of static before a voice came down the line.

  ‘Flannigan and Cox, I’m guessing?’

  It was Roger Miles.

  ‘Yes,’ Flannigan said. ‘We’re both here.’

  ‘Good. We’ve got a full room here. Charles Greenfield, Wendy Acaster, Caroline Branding, Bob Stokes and myself.’

  Cox suddenly felt all the more exposed at hearing the list of names. The Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, as well as both MI5 and MI6 chiefs.

  Flannigan snorted when he saw Cox’s reaction.

  ‘Do you have an update for us?’ Miles asked.

  ‘Yes. I do. I got off the line with the director of Trapeze just a few minutes ago,’ Flannigan said, which was certainly news to Cox. Was he deliberately keeping her in the dark now? But then if that was the case why bother asking her to come on his call? ‘Our targets remain completely dark.’

  ‘And Torkal?’

  Flannigan sighed. ‘We believe he’s back on European soil.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Miles said. ‘When the hell did you find this out?’

  ‘I just said I was on the phone with Trapeze a few minutes ago,’ Flannigan responded q
uickly, standing his ground. ‘We believe he washed up in Algeria a few miles west of Algiers. A local fisherman called in to the police that he’d spotted a man walking in from the sea. We have another local report from a few hours ago of a missing dinghy at a small private quay near to the port of Oran. It’s only a short hop from around there to Southern Spain. Putting two and two together . . .’

  ‘But the Spanish coast guard haven’t alerted us to anyone attempting to smuggle themselves in?’ The words of an unfamiliar female voice echoed from the speaker.

  Cox guessed it was Caroline Branding, the MI5 chief, because she’d seen the other woman, foreign secretary Wendy Acaster, plenty of times on TV, and there wasn’t a hint of her Welsh accent.

  ‘Not yet, no,’ Flannigan said. ‘Torkal took a chance and got lucky, it’s as simple as that. That coastline is a common landing point for drug smugglers from Africa so I agree it’s a surprise he wasn’t picked up. Perhaps because of the time of day or the type of craft he used he didn’t hit their radars at the time, but you could just put it down to them being lazy bastards, I guess. Regardless, we should assume that unless he drowned he’s back on European soil now.’

  ‘Miss Cox, are you there?’ came another male voice, softer and with a definite Midlands accent. Cox recognised it as that of the Home Secretary. A relatively young cabinet minister who’d always come across to her as being too nice and plain to successfully command such a position of authority. But she knew better than anyone not to let herself be swayed by misconceptions like that.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

  ‘This is Charles Greenfield. I understand you know more about this . . . group than anyone else.’