Harry looked up from the cluster of tracking beacons on his phone’s screen, into the shadowed face of the older man. “Good.”
Malone started to turn away—then paused, as if there was something on his mind.
“Do we have a problem?”
“Of course we do,” Flaharty’s lieutenant responded, taking a step closer. Too close. He wasn’t quite as tall as Harry, but heavier-built—a huge hand enclosing the receiver of the Remington as he looked into Harry’s eyes.
An intimidating presence, but Harry didn’t back up, his jacket open—hand at his side, only inches away from the holstered H&K. “Flaharty is a fool to let you go along on this run. Sod me if we oughtn’t take you out there and dump you in the Irish Sea.”
And he was right, Harry thought, meeting his gaze evenly. That would be the right operational decision, likely what he would have done if the situation was reversed. And yet there was something more here—something personal. “Do we have a history?”
By way of answer, Malone reached down with his left hand, briefly pulling up his sweater to reveal an ugly pockmark on his lower abdomen, the indentation purplish and discolored. An old wound. “Last time we met…you bloody well shot me.”
Mali? It had to have been.
“Oh, well that can’t have been me,” Harry smiled grimly, clapping a hand on Malone’s shoulder as he moved past the big man. “You’re still alive…”
7:03 P.M.
A small restaurant
Leeds, England
“It’s been so many years, Mehr.” The old man smiled gently, motioning for her to take a seat across from him in the small, darkened booth. “Too many. And you look weary.”
Mehreen nodded, gazing into Ismail Besimi’s face as she slid into the booth. He looked troubled, despite the casual nature of his greeting. “They’ve not been easy years, father. Not since…Nick passed.”
He closed his eyes reverently. “I had heard. He was a good man—may God receive him unto paradise.”
An Asian waiter appeared at their table and she adjusted her hijab to veil her face in shadow, allowing Besimi to order her a cup of tea. It wasn’t something he would have done for her under normal circumstances—but discretion was the imperative in these times. For his sake. And hers.
He waited until the waiter left before speaking again, his voice low. “The years have come and gone, and our community has only grown more divided with the passage of time. Here in this land where we came for freedom. For opportunity.”
The imam paused, meeting her eyes. “If only we had all shared those reasons.”
She knew only too well what he was referring to. “The Service is aware of Hashim Rahman.”
“Rahman,” he said, waving a hand, “is but a symptom of the larger problem. The dogmatists that have overrun our faith…insisting stridently that theirs is the only way by which a man can worship God and any other is murtad.”
Apostate. As her own family had once been declared. It was an accusation that carried with it death in many parts of the Islamic world. “I’ve done what I can to stand against him, but he is a charismatic figure. And your people have tied my hands. One cannot at once be a reformer and an informer, and your Security Service places a short-sighted priority on the latter.”
She shook her head, looking up as the waiter brought her tea. “We’ve gone over all of this in the past,” she said, glancing cautiously at the man’s retreating back. “Back when I first recruited you. We need sources inside the Islamic community if we are to stop these attacks.”
“No,” he replied, the sudden strength in his voice surprising her. “What you need is the ability to cut them off at the roots, where they begin. Not with the first purchase of fertilizer, the first theft of blasting caps—but with the innocent children sitting cross-legged listening to those who preach hate. Those who take away all their hopes and ambitions and fill their young minds with dreams of dying in Afghanistan, in Syria. Those who spread the perversion that being a shaheed—a witness for God—means blowing yourself up in a market crowded with innocents. Until you can counter that, people will continue to die, no matter what else you do.”
Mehreen remained silent as the old man paused, only too aware of the truth of his words. The magnitude of that which they were attempting to fight. “The best solutions always seem to be the ones which are hardest to implement.”
“Solutions?” There was a touch of bitterness in the imam’s voice as he gestured toward her. “No one is interested in solutions, Mehreen. Not the street preachers who blaspheme Allah’s name with their praises every time their sermons lead to the death of the innocent. Not the politicians in Whitehall, too timid to even name that which threatens them. Not the thugs of the British Defence Coalition, lashing out at anyone who looks like he might be an immigrant. Nor their backers in the press.”
It wasn’t what she had come to discuss, but she knew Besimi—as well as the culture from which they both had come. It would have been considered an insult to interrupt him.
He raised a long, bony finger as if something had just come to mind. “You know who Arthur Colville is, do you not?”
She nodded. “He’s the right-wing publisher of the Daily Standard.”
“The same. It was after the 7/7 bombings that he first put out his call for Muslim leaders willing to take a public stand against those he calls ‘fundamentalists.’”
“I remember,” Mehreen replied. All too well. Colville’s offer of a column in his paper to any Muslim leader willing to denounce the Islamists had become a yearly ritual, every year on the anniversary of the bombings. Every year unanswered, hanging there like a taunt.
He smiled, a sad smile of resignation. “What you don’t know is that I contacted him that first year—offered to take my stand, even if it meant being declared apostate.”
“And?”
“And my calls were never returned that year—nor the next year, when I repeated my offer. Nor the next. He’s learned the lesson of those he claims to despise, Mehreen. That there is money to be made in the peddling of hatred.”
There were no words—the dishonesty of it all. Perhaps nothing should have surprised her, not after all her years with the Service.
Besimi started to speak, then seemed to think better of his words—regarding her with a strange look. Something was wrong, she thought, her hands wrapped around the steaming cup of tea in an attempt to warm herself against a sudden chill.
A feeling of foreboding.
“But all of that…it’s not why I asked to meet with you tonight.”
7:14 P.M.
Thames House
London
“Good God,” Alec MacCallum breathed, glancing down at the sheet of paper in his hand. “This is confirmed?”
The analyst nodded. “GCHQ just sent it over with the hourlies.”
Something like this should have been sent immediately, without waiting for the hourlies. Those boffins.
MacCallum swore loudly, drawing looks from around the Centre as he hurried toward the DG’s office. This couldn’t have been worse.
Marsh looked up as he burst in, not stopping to knock. “What’s going on?”
“We have a problem, Julian,” MacCallum announced, thrusting the sheet toward the DG.
“What am I supposed to be looking at?”
“It’s the text message that was sent to Tarik Abdul Muhammad in City Station,” the lead analyst replied, running a hand across his forehead as he began to quote the text. “Who I am doesn’t matter. There’s a woman to your left. Dark skin, dark hair. Forties. She’s with Five.”
“And the sender?” Marsh asked, his eyes still scanning down the paper.
“Ismail Besimi.”
7:16 P.M.
The restaurant
Leeds
“Then what is it, Ismail?” Mehreen asked, her eyes searching his aged face.
He hesitated once again. “We have been friends for many years, Mehreen. Ever since you first came to w
orship at the masjid as a young woman.”
Another pause, as he smiled sadly. “I remember those first weeks—your earnestness, your curiosity. Too many in our faith would disregard the questions, the searching of a woman, but I knew you were something special from the first time I saw you, mash’allah. And that’s why, when all this began to happen, I knew I had to speak to you first.”
“What?” she asked, a fear suddenly gnawing at her heart. Her phone buzzed in the inside pocket of her jacket, but she ignored it. “When what began to happen?”
He looked away for another moment, as if pained to meet her eyes. “It’s Aydin…”
7:22 P.M.
The surveillance van
Leeds
“Come on, Mehr—pick up the bloody phone,” Darren whispered, glaring at the screen of his mobile. “Sod it!”
“Special Branch is another five minutes out,” Norris announced, looking up from his screens.
The field officer shook his head, still struggling to process all that had unfolded since the team had received the first red-flash. That they had been betrayed. “That’s not going to be soon enough.”
“It’s going to have to be,” the analyst replied. “We don’t have tactical authority.”
The former Royal Marine spat. “Oh, bugger tactical authority, we’re talking about Mehreen.”
Norris was right, but he could feel the bulge of the Sig-Sauer Marsh had given him against his side and he found himself fighting against the urge to draw it and go in alone. “We sent her in there with a traitor.”
Dear God, Mehr, why wouldn’t you wear a wire?
He looked up into the American’s eyes, reading a cool appraisal written there. They’d both served in Afghanistan, both knew what it was like to lose people—all too well.
It was the moment of truth. “Parker, you’re with me. Everyone else, stay here—man the cameras and keep your comms live.”
He pushed open the back door of the van, jumping out into the darkened street with the American officer right behind him. “What’s the plan?”
“You take the back door, I’ll take the front. Whatever you do, mate, don’t let anyone leave—we’ll stage the assault once Special Branch arrives.”
7:23 P.M.
The restaurant
“No,” she whispered, looking into the imam’s eyes. It couldn’t be. “That isn’t possible.”
“But it is, Mehreen,” he said gently, his eyes never leaving her face. He looked as if he might have reached out to touch her hand, but not even Besimi was that progressive. “I’ve seen the way he looks at the imam when he speaks of Syria, of those fighting and dying there—I’ve seen him and some of the others talking together after the lectures. I fear there can be no mistake…Aydin has fallen under Rahman’s spell.”
“He was such a beautiful boy…” She shook her head sadly, her words filled with regret. She hadn’t seen her nephew since his eighth birthday, one of the last times she’d visited her sister’s family. He’d just been a normal British boy then, ecstatic over receiving his gifts—unwrapping the Harry Potter novel she had given him. The Prisoner of Azkaban, if she recalled correctly.
Had it been that long? “We have to do something,” she whispered, wiping a defiant tear away from the corner of her eye.
Besimi shrugged, spreading out his hands before her. “I’ve tried, believe me when I say that. But for all his claims of now being a ‘true’ Muslim, Aydin no longer has the respect for his elders that our faith would demand. I thought that perhaps with you being his aunt…”
Mehreen smiled, a bitter, angry smile. “An absent aunt that he probably only remembers for giving him a book he now no doubt considers blasphemous. But there has to be something—it would break Nimra’s heart if he went to prison, or…”
She couldn’t even bring herself to voice the alternative.
Her phone buzzed again—this time with an incoming text. Gesturing to Ismail to excuse herself, she flipped it open, reading the message displayed on the screen: two words. Get down.
She didn’t have time to react, to process the meaning before she heard the shattering of glass from the front of the restaurant, heard something thrown inside, metal rattling against the tile.
Without hesitation, she threw an arm across the table, seizing the old man by the shoulder and pulling him with her as she hurled herself to the floor. “Down!”
The next moment, the room exploded in light…
Chapter 9
7:26 P.M.
The restaurant
Leeds
Darren turned his head away, cupping a hand against his ear as the stun grenade went off inside the restaurant, the explosion hammering his eardrums—light washing over him as the evening turned bright as the noon, the shouts of the tactical team sounding faint and indistinct, echoing dimly in his mind.
He would have given anything to have been on the entry team, he thought, staggering back, glancing into the depths of the restaurant as the light faded. But a tactical team was an organism unto itself, and there was no way they would have let a stranger—no matter how well-trained—lead the stack.
Come on, he whispered, silently cursing. They had to have been in time, a cold chill running once more through his body at the thought of the danger they had placed her in.
Screams. Her ears rang with the force of the explosion, her eyes half-shielded from the blast.
She felt, rather than heard, booted footsteps pounding against the floor—a gloved hand on her shoulder pulling her to her feet, helping her up.
A voice shouting in her ear and she looked up into a helmeted face, the insignia of the North Yorkshire Police on the shoulder of the man’s uniform, a Heckler & Koch MP-5 slung across his chest.
It was a friendly. But why?
Ismail, she thought, glancing around herself for the old man, her vision still blurry and painful from the flash-bang’s glare.
And then she saw the imam, lying face-down on the tiled floor of the café, a policeman’s boot on his shoulder as another member of the entry team zip-cuffed his hands behind his back.
“What are you doing?” she tried to ask, but she could barely hear herself speaking the words as the officer took her by the arm, her voice sounding disembodied. Weak.
There was some mistake—something had gone wrong. She staggered toward the doorway with the officer holding her up, fearing the worst: that the local constables had blundered carelessly into their op, placing them all in danger, but Besimi most of all.
It wasn’t until she saw Darren standing in the doorway of the café that she realized that wasn’t the worst.
Far from it.
7:45 P.M.
Sheffield, England
Wait. That’s what they had told him to do, Paul Gordon thought. Just sit and wait.
His eyes swept across the garage—the motor pool—for that’s what it really was, taking in the four lorries parked before the doors. Conor had spoken of being able to strike back, to actually make a difference.
But what was this? What had he meant? He didn’t recognize any of the other men in the garage, bustling around the trucks—but he’d spent long enough “in” to know soldiers when he saw them.
Even if he hadn’t been a hero.
A side door of the garage opened at that moment and Hale came in along with a rush of cold air, a jacket cloaking his powerful frame.
“Paul,” he said, smiling as he reached out a hand to draw Gordon into a fierce hug. “I couldn’t be happier to see you here, mate. Right chuffed.”
Gordon returned the smile, but with an effort. It had been hard to smile at anything these last few days. “What is it, exactly, that we are doing, Conor? They told me you would explain things when you arrived.”
“You’ve not forgotten how to use one of these, have you?” Hale reached into his jacket, pulling out a Beretta Px4 Storm and handing the compact semiautomatic over, butt-first.
The former Para shook his head. “No, it’s one of thos
e things…you never forget. What’s this for?”
Tonight,” Hale began, clapping him warmly on the shoulder. “Tonight we begin to make history.”
8:09 P.M.
Thames House
London
“They have him,” one of the communications officers announced, removing his headset to glance back over his shoulder. “Besimi is secured and Crawford is safe.”
Thank God, MacCallum thought, trying to hide his emotion. He and Mehreen had worked together for so many years…for it to have ended this way. At the hands of a compromised asset.
“Where is Besimi now?”
“In Special Branch custody at Leeds,” the man replied. “They’ll be transferring him back to Paddington Green as soon as he can be processed.”
“How long are we talking about?”
“Two, three days maximum.”
Bureaucracy. The section chief shook his head, cursing softly under his breath. They’d simply have to make the most of it.
“Contact our Leeds office, have them send a minder over. Make sure any locals responsible for interrogating Besimi are fully cognizant that any information pertaining to this case falls under the Official Secrets Act before they’re put in the same room with him.” It was questionable how much they could get out of him, but perhaps this was the break they had been waiting for. He could only pray so.
“Sir,” came a voice at his side, a young analyst standing there—extending a folder toward him.
“What’s this?” MacCallum asked, taking it from him.
“We have a name on one of the numbers called by Rahman this morning. The mobile belongs to one Javeed Mousa, a Libyan national. He’s here on a student visa, been attending the University of London these last two years.”
“And?”
The analyst seemed to swallow hard. “And I just got off from talking with the headmaster. No one has seen Mousa in the last month.”
9:25 P.M.
A flat
Leeds
Perhaps he had known it was inevitable, a risk of the path God had commanded him to follow.
Perhaps. But it didn’t make the reality any easier.
The hair on the back of Hashim Rahman’s neck prickled as he stood there on the step outside his second-story flat, fumbling for his keys. His wife at work, pulling night shift at the infirmary—his daughter staying with her grandmother for the night. He felt naked, exposed in the glare of the light above him.
Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors Book 3) Page 18