Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors Book 3)

by Stephen England

  Embrace the Fire

  Stephen England

  Copyright © 2016 by Stephen England

  Cover design by Louis Vaney

  Author photo by Jonathan Williams

  Formatting by Polgarus Studio

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Views expressed by the characters in this novel are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author.

  Also by Stephen England

  Sword of Neamha

  Shadow Warriors Series

  LODESTONE

  NIGHTSHADE

  Pandora’s Grave

  Day of Reckoning

  TALISMAN

  Embrace the Fire

  Lion of God Trilogy

  Lion of God: Episode I

  In memoriam of the late Tom Clancy and Vince Flynn, both of whom passed away during the writing of Embrace the Fire.

  Two legends whose influence upon the thriller genre can hardly be overstated, and whom I have to thank for a great deal of inspiration over the years.

  It is to their memory that this novel, and the character of John Patrick Flynn, is respectfully dedicated.

  “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.” – Romans 12:19

  “Revenge…it is like a rolling stone, which, when a man hath forced up a hill, will return upon him with a greater violence, and break those bones whose sinews gave it motion.” – Jeremy Taylor, Apples of Sodom

  Glossary

  BND—Federal Intelligence Service of Germany

  CCTV—Closed Circuit Television

  CO-19—Specialist Firearms Command

  CONUS—Continental United States

  CS—tear gas

  DCIA—Director, Central Intelligence Agency

  DCS—Director, Clandestine Service

  DG—Director-General

  DGSE—Directorate-General for External Security

  GCHQ—Government Communications Headquarters

  HAHO—High Altitude, High Opening

  HUMINT—Human Intelligence

  IED—Improvised Explosive Device

  IRA—Irish Republican Army

  JSOC—Joint Special Operations Command

  MI-5—The Security Service

  MI-6—Secret Intelligence Service

  MoD—Ministry of Defence

  MP—Member of Parliament

  MRE—Meals Ready to Eat

  NCA—National Crime Agency

  NCO—Non-comissioned officer

  NCS—National Clandestine Service

  NODs—Night Optical Device

  NSA—National Security Agency

  PIRA—Provisional Irish Republican Army

  PM—Prime Minister

  PMC—Private Military Contractor

  RAF—Royal Air Force

  RUMINT—Rumor Intelligence

  RUC—Royal Ulster Constabulary

  SAD—Special Activities Division

  SAS—Special Air Service

  SCIF—Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility

  SDR—Surveillance Detection Run

  SIGINT—Signals Intelligence

  SO-13—Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch

  SO-14—Metropolitan Police Royalty Protection Branch

  SO-15—Metropolitan Police Counterterrorism Command

  UAV—Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

  VBIED—Vehicle-Borne Improved Explosive Device

  Prologue

  8:03 P.M. Greenwich Mean Time, March 22nd

  London, England

  They were watching. He knew that—they were always watching, a hundred lidless eyes gazing down through the night.

  Never blinking. Never resting. Just always there.

  And they knew his face.

  The rain came tumbling down out of the sky above him—nothing heavy, just a steady drizzle—ice-cold water running down his cheeks, collecting in the rough stubble that masked the lower half of his face.

  A dead zone lay ahead, between him and the bus stop, or at least there had once been—a twenty-foot gap in London’s legendary CCTV coverage. Enough space for a man to disappear.

  Disappear. There’d been times he’d wanted nothing more than to do just that. To disappear, to run—into the night.

  Not yet.

  There was only one camera across the street from the stop and he ducked his head as if against the rain as he approached the far side of the double-decker bus. Shielding his face.

  Public transportation was a risk, but one he had to take. A thirty-minute ride would put him at his destination. After that…

  He could only keep this up for so long, that much he knew. Had known it ever since he’d set out, he thought, ascending into the bus just behind a young Muslim woman in a hijab and jeans—her small son clutching her hand.

  But it would have to be enough.

  So many memories. He paused for a long moment on the curb, alone once more—the bustle of the bus ride left far behind. Looking up at the flat before him, rain soaking him to the skin as he stood there. Sadness glinting in his gunmetal blue eyes.

  So many years, passed and gone.

  It was the kind of place he would have expected her to have sought out, he realized—the low gate giving beneath his hand as he moved like a ghost toward the door, the black windbreaker hanging loose and wet from his tall, powerful frame.

  Quiet, nondescript. Just another in a long row of terraced houses. Anonymous.

  There was nothing more valuable…not in their business.

  He glanced at the plate mounted to the right of the door, verifying the address once more before he lifted his hand to press the bell.

  Hearing the vague, distant sound of it ringing through the flat as he waited, his eyes flickering back to the deserted street. Ever alert.

  Footsteps within, the sound of someone cautiously approaching the door. “Who’s there?”

  He turned so that his face was visible through the peephole. “It’s me, Mehreen.”

  “Ya, Allah.” He could hear her gasp of surprise through the door. The Arabic so familiar to his ears. Oh, God.

  Another moment, and he heard the rattle of a chain, a bolt being slid back as the door swung open.

  The woman who stood in the doorway was in her mid-forties, nearly eight years his senior—her shoulder-length black hair now shot with tell-tale streaks of silver. Framing the dark features of her native Pakistan. “It’s been a long time, Mehr.”

  It was a long moment before she replied, a mixture of emotions playing out across her face—and for a moment he thought she might shut the door in his face. Turn him away.

  “Yes…yes it has.” She turned back from the door, seeming to choose her words with reluctance. “Come in, if you want—I’ll make a pot of tea.”

  He followed her into the small living room of the apartment, removing his hat and running long fingers through his rain-slick black hair as she disappeared into the kitchen.

  There was a framed picture on the small table, a picture of a bride in shining white on the arm of a sandy-haired man in full dress uniform—passing underneath the arched sabers of the Regiment. Something about the way they were looking at each other, eyes full of laughter. Of hope. Of love.

  A wist
ful smile touched his lips as he picked up the frame, the memories flooding back. He’d been there that day. Experienced the majesty of that wedding.

  There were other memories, and…well, majestic was hardly the word.

  “Nick was a good man,” he announced, feeling almost shame-faced as she reentered the room to find him holding the picture.

  She nodded, passing him the hot cup and saucer and taking the frame from his hands. His own sadness reflected in her eyes. “Yes—he was.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you…at the funeral.” He’d been in Darfur at the time. No way to get back—a job to do. “They told me it was another splinter group of the Provos. A bomb.”

  Another nod, as she eyed him guardedly.

  “I thought that had all died away,” he said, raising the cup of Darjeeling to his lips. Steam drifted off the pale golden liquid, warming him against the rain that had chilled his body. “That the Troubles were behind us.”

  A bitter smile crossed her lips. “We always think that, don’t we? But hate…hate never dies. Old men pass it on to the young in the blood. Playing at war—their ‘patriot game.’ And good men die.”

  Good men die. The refrain of his life.

  If he closed his eyes, he could still remember it. The HAHO jump over Lebanon, standing there on the ramp of the C-130 with Nick Crawford and another SAS sergeant at his side. Preparing to jump out into the pitch black of the night.

  He could feel the shock of the parachute opening, hear the crackle of automatic weapons fire, smell the gunfire—the blood. He’d saved Nick’s life that night. Brought him home safe to her.

  But good men die.

  He looked up to find her regarding him intently. Her tea untouched by the side of her chair. “You’re here to kill a man…aren’t you, Harry?”

  Harry Nichols leaned back in the armchair, watching her—

  measuring his words carefully. “I don’t work for the Agency any longer, Mehr.”

  Her fingers trembled slightly as she picked up her teacup, something akin to fear in her dark eyes.

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  Chapter 1

  6:09 A.M., March 23rd

  A flat

  London, England

  The light of early dawn through the low window struck him in the face as he lifted his face from the prayer rug, gazing east toward Mecca. “Assalaamu ‘alaykum wa rahmatu-Allah.”

  The blessings and peace of God be upon you. Hands flattened out upon his knees, he finished performing the taslim, rising as the last of the sacred words passed across his lips.

  He rose to his feet, folding the rug reverently and placing it in the small closet beside his bed. Right beside the shoebox containing a pair of mobile phones—and his double-action Browning High Power.

  The gun was illegal in the UK, but so were many other things. And with what was coming, it was not a time for followers of the Apostle to be unarmed.

  He left his room, pulling the door shut quietly behind him as he walked down the narrow hallway of the flat toward the kitchen.

  “Salaam alaikum, shaikh,” a voice greeted him. Tarik Abdul Muhammad smiled, reaching out to embrace his host.

  “And blessings and peace be upon your house, my brother.”

  A basket of garlic bread was placed before him as he took his seat at the breakfast table and he glanced briefly upward into the face of his host’s wife. “Jazak’allah khair.”

  May God reward you with goodness. She didn’t respond, modest woman that she was, merely smiled as she moved away from the table, her hair covered in a flowing hijab.

  Which was as it should be.

  For weeks he had lived this way, Tarik thought, tearing off a piece of the bread and placing it in his mouth. Moving from place to place among the faithful, never staying with one family for more than a few days.

  Evading the watchers.

  He reached out to tousle the jet-black hair of their five-year-old daughter as she moved past his chair, smiling at her laugh. Children were a gift from God.

  A gift he had himself forfeited, for a greater cause.

  Without warning, a knock came on the door of the flat—hard and urgent. His hosts exchanging glances, fear all too visible in their eyes.

  Fear that the door would come crashing in the next moment, battered in by a ram in the hands of the thugs they knew as the Special Branch. Fear that their children would be caught in the cross-fire.

  Tarik replaced the uneaten portion of the garlic bread in the basket, eyeing the distance down the hallway back to the small room where he’d been sleeping. Was there time?

  The knock came again, and his host rose from the table. “I’ll get it,” he whispered, motioning with his hand for his family to leave the room.

  Tarik nodded, speaking softly in his native Pashto as he shepherded them down the hall and back into the room he had come to call home. “Stay here,” he instructed the wife, grabbing the box out of the closet, the little girl’s eyes opening wide at the sight of the gun in his hand.

  Voices. He moved down the hallway toward the sound, the muzzle of the Browning leading the way—the weapon cold in his hands.

  “Brother Tarik,” his host called out just as he rounded the corner. There was a young man standing just within the flat’s door, speaking rapidly. Light-skinned, his face covered in dark stubble, his hands were moving quickly as he talked.

  And then he saw the gun. “Please, please, no. I am not your enemy.”

  “Then who are you?”

  His host stepped between them, holding up his hand. “Salaam, Tarik. Abdul comes to us as a courier from the Brothers.”

  The Ikhwan.

  Tarik smiled, de-cocking the Browning as he waved the courier forward, gesturing for him to take a seat at the table. “Salaam alaikum, my brother.”

  “Wa’ alaikum salaam.” And unto you peace.

  “What word do you bring me, Abdul?” Tarik asked, taking a seat opposite the young Arab, the Browning laying there on the table between them. With the Western intelligence agencies monitoring every call placed, every e-mail sent…the faithful had been reduced to this for messages too important, too specific to trust otherwise. Meeting face-to-face.

  A man, carrying a message.

  Reduced? For as it had been in the days of the Prophet, so it was now.

  The Arab licked his lips nervously, his dark eyes darting from one to another as if uncertain whether he should speak. “I bring evil news, shaikh. The prince is dead.”

  For a long moment, Tarik thought he must have misunderstood his words. His once-tranquil blue eyes blazed as he leaned across the table, his voice lowering to a hiss. “Prince Yusuf?”

  “The same.”

  “How did this happen? When?”

  Once again, the man’s tongue darted out nervously, moistening his lips.

  “He was shot dead aboard his yacht Khaybar, four days ago. This,” he said, his fingers trembling as he laid a small, coin-shaped object on the table between them, “was found in his mouth.”

  Hesitating for only a moment, Tarik reached forward, picking up the object. It wasn’t a coin, but rather a poker chip.

  A poker chip with the word Bellagio emblazoned in the center.

  It was as if the shadow of Death itself had fallen over the room, a chill pervading his body.

  He reached forward, grasping the messenger by the wrist. “Why have you brought this to me?”

  6:21 A.M.

  The United States Embassy

  Grosvenor Square, London

  “…only following the instructions I was given. Forgive me, shaikh.”

  “Got you,” Carlos Jimenez whispered, a grin of triumph crossing his face. Their gambit had paid off, succeeding where nearly a month of joint surveillance had failed. Locating their target. He leaned back in his chair, running a hand over his chin as the audio stream continued. “How long do you think it will take him to figure out that poker chip was embedded with a tracker?”<
br />
  The tall man sitting on the edge of his desk smiled ever so faintly. “Hard to say, but I wouldn’t want to be ‘Abdul’ when he does.”

  That was God’s honest truth, Jimenez thought, glancing around at his windowless office. The furnishings were Spartan enough, considering the former Marine’s position at the Court of St. James.

  He’d been a Marine for ten of his forty-five years, had served with the Agency another nine.

  Station Chief London—that was his title, one that he had held for the last two years. Not that anyone aside from his own team and his colleagues at Thames House—the headquarters of the UK’s Security Service—used it.

  Anonymity…it was more to be desired than anything else in this business.

  “You were there, weren’t you, Parker?” he asked, looking up into his colleague’s eyes. “In Vegas.”

  Vegas. Thomas Parker glanced across the room at the empty wall, a thousand images passing before his eyes in the long moment before he responded. Remembering that night, the Nevada sky filled with fire, the stench of blood and gunpowder filling the Bellagio’s theatre.

  The scent of camphor in his nostrils. Soman nerve gas.

  “Yes,” the paramilitary operations officer replied. “I was there.”

  And wasn’t able to stop it, his mind finished for him, unspoken words of self-condemnation. For terror had come to America that night—on the very eve of Christmas itself.

  When he looked back, it was to find the station chief staring at him. The man might not have quite looked the image of a Marine, nine years after leaving the Corps for the intelligence community, but there were traces still present—the prematurely greying hair cropped up high and tight, the voice of command that every recruit knew so well.

  “Is that going to be a problem?” he asked, the meaning clear in his voice.

  Thomas chose to ignore it. “What do you mean?”

  With a heavy sigh, Jimenez opened the bottom drawer of his desk, pulling out a bottle of Jim Beam and a pair of shot glasses with the USMC logo etched into the crystal. “Don’t give me that, Parker. You know exactly what I mean—you know our orders, yours and mine. You’re here to surveil Tarik Abdul Muhammad, not take him down. Now we’ve found him, so I’m asking: can you handle that?”

  He watched him tilt the bottle of bourbon, amber liquid splashing into the glasses. Temptation gnawing at his heart.