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

by Rob Sinclair

  ‘That’s possible. I’ve been investigating them for over a year.’

  ‘Which is why I find it very unusual that I’m only now hearing about them, when we’re allegedly hours away from imminent terrorist attacks.’

  The comment was met with absolute silence, though Cox didn’t feel embarrassed or uncomfortable about his words, only disappointed. The way Flannigan was squirming suggested he realised the dig was aimed more at him than her. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t been trying to raise the alarm before now.

  ‘Do you have any more details about when and where the attacks will take place?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Or where Torkal is going?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Another silence followed.

  ‘We’ve now got full co-operation of the security services in each of the six other countries we believe are targets,’ Miles said. ‘And, with their assistance, raids have been conducted on every address we can link to the Thirteen.’

  ‘But with no additional useful intelligence found, I gather,’ came a gruff voice with an upper class English drawl. Bob Stokes, the mid-sixties MI6 boss.

  ‘Unfortunately not,’ Miles continued.

  ‘So I’d say we’re into what the hell next mode now. It’s getting to the point where we have to seriously consider making the threat public and getting the military involved.’

  ‘I agree,’ Cox said, unable to hold her tongue.

  ‘Have you both lost your minds?’ Greenfield said. ‘You think putting tanks and soldiers on the streets is the answer?’

  ‘That has to be an absolute last resort,’ Acaster said.

  ‘Last resort is exactly what we need,’ Stokes countered.

  ‘It’ll cause chaos!’ Greenfield said. ‘And there’s no way we can control that type of response over multiple countries.’

  ‘It could be the only way,’ Miles said.

  ‘What are you suggesting exactly?’ Wendy Acaster piped up. ‘We don’t know where the attacks will happen. To get an effective response we’d have to close all ports, airports, train stations. We’d need to get three hundred million people across Europe sold on the idea, and agreeing to lock themselves inside their homes until further notice.’

  ‘Even if we had more time that would be next to impossible to achieve,’ Branding said. ‘I mean, perhaps it’s possible that the Home Secretary and MI5 can have a curfew organised on home soil, but to co-ordinate that across most of Western Europe?’

  ‘I think the other countries will follow our lead,’ Stokes said.

  ‘At the very least we need to inform the public of the threat level,’ Miles said. ‘We need to consider deploying the military to key cities and sites.’

  ‘But which cities? Which sites?’ Greenfield said.

  The conversation was quickly descending into aimless back and forth, and Cox was even losing track of who was saying what and which side of the argument each of them was on. She wanted to offer up her thoughts, to try and give sound advice, to give focus and clarity to the situation, but in truth she was just as lost as the others. The only difference, unlike these desk jockeys, was she knew when to shut up.

  She saw that Flannigan now had his head in hands, as though he too had nothing useful to add.

  ‘Flannigan. What do you think?’ Miles asked. Flannigan raised his head and glared over at Cox. ‘You and Cox have been out at street level with this. What do we need to do to contain this threat? Is there anything we can do now?’

  ‘Other than pray?’ Flannigan said before giving a nervous laugh. His churlish comment was met with silence and Cox saw his cheeks flush a little. ‘I see no choice. Torkal was our way in, and now he’s on the loose I’m not sure how else we get to the others. We have to do everything we can to protect civilian life. Public announcements, transport closures, event cancellations, police and military presence on the streets. You need to put into place whatever measures you can.’

  ‘And, Miss Cox, do you agree with that?’ Greenfield said. ‘Is there anything else we’re missing here?’

  ‘My fear is that if we don’t find them in time, they’ll attack anyway,’ Cox said, ‘regardless of what measures we now put in place.’

  ‘What do you mean exactly?’

  ‘Their plans are too well laid. They’re already weaponised. You close down a site where they were planning to attack and they’ll just go somewhere else. All of the training and the set-up is long over. They’re ready to attack, and they’ll likely have backups – or they’ll simply improvise. I know this group. Maybe we’re even playing into their hands right now.’

  ‘Sorry, but you’ve lost me,’ Greenfield said.

  Cox sighed. ‘Look, if some nutter with a readymade bomb wants an explosion then he’s going to get a damn explosion. We’re too late here. They’re ready. You can put measures in place, curfews to stop them blowing up a stadium, or a crowded airport or a shopping centre, but we can’t make millions of people disappear. Our targets can just as easily walk down a plain old residential street and blow up an apartment block. We can’t protect everyone, everywhere, all at once.’

  ‘Are you saying you have evidence that they’re planning to attack civilian residences?’

  ‘No. I’m saying they will attack, no matter what. As long as they are out there, they won’t stop.’

  ‘What should we do then?’

  ‘Take the necessary precautions, by all means. Doing so may save some lives. But the only way to stop this is to find every last one of the Thirteen.’

  ‘And how do we do that, exactly?’

  But Cox didn’t have a realistic answer to that.

  ‘And what about this cyanide?’ Greenfield said. ‘Do we even know how they’re planning to weaponise it?’

  ‘No,’ Cox said. ‘And I’m no chemist, but I’d say it’s most likely they would need to feed the gas into an enclosed air system for it to be effective. I’ve never heard of it being used any other way.’

  ‘So, what are we talking about? Offices? Airports?’

  ‘Given the historical comparisons, most probably.’

  ‘That still leaves dozens of potential targets,’ Acaster said.

  Both Cox and Flannigan flinched at a double tap on the door. The door opened and the same female flight lieutenant who’d escorted them to the room earlier was standing there, a concerned look on her face.

  ‘For God’s sake––’ Flannigan started.

  ‘I’m so sorry for the interruption,’ the woman said. ‘But, Miss Cox, there’s been an urgent phone call for you.’

  ‘Who is it?’ Cox said, feeling a buzz of anticipation at the flight lieutenant’s unease.

  ‘He didn’t stay on the line,’ she said, coming into the room and handing Cox a torn piece of paper. ‘That’s the number he said to call. He says he’ll speak only to you, and no one else. He gave his name as Aydin Torkal.’

  SIXTY-TWO

  Cordoba, Spain

  Aydin glanced at the Casio digital watch he’d stolen from an angry English drunk man roaming the early morning streets of Cordoba, perhaps after a good night out. Good for Aydin, that was. They’d crossed paths as the drunk wobbled along and Aydin had followed him for several minutes as he shouted obscenities at young women out on their morning commute. As well as the guy’s watch, Aydin got his wallet, which contained a debit card, three credit cards and nearly two hundred euros in cash. He didn’t feel bad for the man. Some people were far more deserving as victims of crime than others.

  The drunk hadn’t been Aydin’s only victim over the last few hours. Having lost all of his possessions after escaping the clutches of MI6, he’d had to quickly re-equip himself, largely through simple pickpocketing. It was the most low-profile way of gaining quick cash.

  It was nearly quarter to ten and he was sipping freshly squeezed orange juice under the awnings of a wood-panelled Spanish bar, the air filled with the smell of toasted bread, huevos revueltos and fresh coffee. A clutch of eager touris
ts were out and about but most were still in their hotels, and the bars and cafes were mostly busy with businessmen and women stopping for refreshments before heading to the office.

  Aydin took another swig of juice then set the glass back down and saw the phone’s screen flash with an incoming call.

  ‘Are you alone?’ he asked, when he answered the call.

  There was a short pause before the lie. ‘Yes,’ Cox said. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘You’ll know soon enough.’ They would of course be scrabbling to triangulate the position of the burner phone he was using. That was fine. ‘I’m sorry for hitting you.’

  ‘I’ve got quite a shiner.’

  He looked at his watch again.

  ‘There’re about two hours left now.’

  ‘Help me, Aydin. Tell us what you can. We have to try to stop them.’

  ‘I’ll give you what I can, the locations, but I don’t have full details of the targets. You’ll have to do the rest yourselves.’

  She sighed, as though he was still playing hardball, but he was giving her all that he had. ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘Birmingham in England. Leipzig in Germany. Ghent in Belgium. Nantes in France. Graz in Austria. Naples in Italy, and––’

  ‘And I’m guessing Cordoba in Spain?’

  That hadn’t taken long. He couldn’t afford to stay on the line much longer. No doubt she’d have the local police up his arse in minutes.

  ‘What else can you tell me, Aydin?’ she said. ‘Just knowing the towns and cities might not be enough. We need to know what the targets are, how the attacks will happen.’

  Aydin realised then there was so much to tell and not enough time. He and his brothers had been planning the attacks for years. It was true he didn’t have every last detail, but even what he knew would take hours to properly explain.

  ‘Each attack will be different,’ he said. ‘Chemical weapons, incendiary devices, high explosives, drones.’

  Cox seemed to be searching for a response.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t screw with me now, Aydin! You may not get another chance.’

  ‘Rachel, I can give you the means, but you have to find them all yourself. I’m not lying to you, I really don’t have the full details of all the plans. Only one man does.’

  ‘Wahid.’

  ‘But he’s mine. That’s the condition. I’ll tell you everything I know, but Wahid is mine.’

  ‘What do you mean, yours?’

  ‘Let me find him. Let me kill him.’

  ‘I can’t do that. Not only is there absolutely no legal or ethical basis for me to agree but it’s simply too big a risk.’

  ‘Then you’ll never hear from me again. Bye, Rachel.’

  He pulled the phone away from his ear and could hear Cox protesting. He paused.

  ‘Aydin, are you still there?’

  He pulled the phone back into place. ‘That’s the condition.’

  ‘I can’t agree. I’m sorry, Aydin. But . . . if you get to him first, then there’s nothing we can do really, is there?’

  Was she speaking hypothetically? It didn’t matter – he just had to do what he could to make sure the authorities didn’t beat him to Wahid.

  ‘They’re not dark,’ Aydin said.

  ‘What? How do you mean?’

  ‘They’re not dark,’ he said again. ‘They’ve been communicating for the last sixty hours.’

  ‘That’s not possible, we’ve––’

  ‘The messages, just like the data on the computers, are coded. It’s time consuming, but you can crack them. Every number in the messages represents a single word. Each can be found in the Quran. Passage, paragraph, word number.’

  ‘Aydin, we’ve intercepted nothing. There are no messages to decode.’

  ‘You’ve been looking in the wrong places. Tell your experts they’re using frequency hopping, they’ll understand.’

  That was enough. He killed the call, left the phone on the table and walked away.

  As he walked he took out the radio transceiver from his backpack and checked the traffic again. Using a simple patch to connect the handheld radio to a tablet computer, he’d effectively created a device that not only acted as a radio but that could be used to locate the origin of the radio traffic he was receiving and intercepting. He wasn’t interested in the coded messages that were coming through now. He didn’t have time to sit and decode them and figure out what it all meant. MI6 could handle that. He only cared about getting to Wahid. And Aydin believed Wahid was not just in Cordoba, but inside the three-storey apartment building that he was approaching.

  The entrance to the small apartment block was set to the side of a working men’s bar that took up the ground floor. The door had a straightforward pin tumbler lock, and judging by the state of the building, and from having seen other people come and go, he saw no extra security in place. He walked straight up to the door, and just like someone who was approaching with the key he casually inserted the torsion wrench and flicked it around to release the series of pins. It took him all of five seconds to pick the lock. Longer than if he’d had the key, but it was a quick, smooth movement and anyone watching would be none the wiser.

  The door opened with a push. Inside, the building was dark and dusty, a bare wooden staircase off to his right. On the left was a series of letterboxes for the apartments; six in total. He didn’t know which apartment he was looking for, but he was confident there’d be a tell soon enough.

  He started up the stairs.

  SIXTY-THREE

  The windowless room was lit by a single fluorescent strip light. Wahid sat on a wooden desk chair, Itnan by his side in front of the radio equipment, listening to the blips coming through the speakers. With every sound, Itnan wrote the corresponding number on the piece of paper with his pencil, and Wahid flicked through the well-worn Quran to find the corresponding word. The process was so well ingrained now that for much of it Wahid could simply directly correlate the reference to the word without even looking.

  ‘That’s it,’ Itnan said, dropping his pencil and clicking the radio off.

  Wahid quickly finished decoding the last few numbers. He placed the written message onto the desk and leant back in his chair.

  ‘Everyone’s in place,’ he said. He looked at his watch. ‘It’s done.’

  Itnan smiled.

  ‘And Phantom?’

  Itnan spun away from the radio equipment and over to this computer terminal. He rapidly flicked through windows and folders and files, and within seconds Wahid was lost. He had a good understanding of computer programming – he and every one of his brothers had been taught extensively. Itnan, though, was something else. Computing was his expertise, his strongest field by far. Electronics too. Following Itnashar’s untimely death in Bruges, the control of the radio system had naturally passed to Itnan, though Wahid had wanted to be in Spain with him throughout the countdown period. Ensuring everything was operating smoothly with Phantom was the final priority.

  ‘It’s all good,’ Itnan confirmed. ‘Phantom will take control of more than three hundred and fifty systems.’

  That was more than seventy over even their highest original estimate. They’d had specific targets for the malware, but the beauty of its design meant that the code had been spread not by their efforts, but by individual unsuspecting users who had inadvertently transmitted the code to colleagues and acquaintances, clients and customers through their routine email communications. So far less than ten systems had managed to fully rebuff the infectious malware, and none of those were companies that mattered.

  Wahid slapped Itnan’s back. ‘Outstanding,’ he said.

  Itnan looked at his watch. ‘I can’t wait to see the others,’ he said.

  ‘Soon, my brother. Very soon.’

  They’d been dark and communicating exclusively over radio for over two days. When the lights finally came back on, it truly would be glorious.

  Beyond the room, th
ere was a knock on the front door of the apartment. Both men looked at each other. The jubilant atmosphere evaporated in an instant.

  ‘Protect the equipment,’ Wahid said. By which he meant hit the kill switch to destroy it all, if needed.

  ‘Yes, brother. I know what to do.’

  Wahid got to his feet and pulled the Beretta from his jeans. He headed for the front door.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  Aydin stood in the hallway and waited. There were three doors on the floor, but he was certain he had the right one. The locks looked new, and he knew from the apartment’s position that it looked out over the front of the building to the street, rather than the other two apartments which looked out to the back, across an enclosed square. It was simple threat management.

  As he waited he began to feel exposed. All he’d need was a gun, but there’d been no opportunity to re-arm since he’d washed up in Spain. Time was up. If the door opened and he was faced with a threat he’d have to just deal with it the old-fashioned way.

  A minute passed. He could have sworn a creak came from the other side of the door, but still it didn’t open. He pushed his ear closer to the scratched wood. Nothing. Then nearly jumped out of his skin when the door across the hall on his left suddenly opened. A young woman. He smiled, doing his best to appear relaxed, as if he had a right to be there.

  He knocked on the door again, then stood patiently as the woman closed her apartment door and came towards him.

  ‘Buenos días,’ he said, with a smile.

  She looked uncertain, but returned the gesture before heading off to the stairwell.

  Another creak sounded from beyond the door. Still the door didn’t open. When the woman down below was out on the street, he decided he’d waited long enough.

  The door had both a pin tumbler lock and a more sophisticated mortice lock. Both could be picked, but he’d rather opt for sudden explosive entry on this occasion, in order to take the upper hand from those who were inside.

  He stood back and brought up his knee, then lurched forward, crashing the heel of his foot into the door, aiming for the hinge side. The locks were new, but the door wasn’t, and he was banking that the hinges were the same age as the door, and thus more vulnerable to breakage by extreme force. Locks were where most people paid their attention, but even if hinges were new it was common for them to be the weakest part of any standard door.