The Pakistani smiled, answering the question with one of his own. “How many men can you give me?”
1:35 P.M.
The United States Embassy
Grosvenor Square, London
It was something about Kranemeyer’s eyes, Thomas thought, staring at the screen on the wall of the station chief’s office. The type of eyes that could look straight through a man, piercing orbs the color of anthracite.
He’d known the man for years—in point of fact, it had been Kranemeyer that had recruited him, long ago at a Heritage Foundation dinner in Philly. A snowy evening, as he remembered it. But he’d never once felt comfortable in his presence.
And today was no exception, even with the man Parker called “boss” over a thousand miles away.
“The ‘day of judgment’ to which Tarik Abdul Muhammad referred in the intercepted call with Rahman—there is no likelihood in your mind that it was a reference to the attack on the nightclub?”
A shake of the head. “No. Our analysts here at Grosvenor Square have gone over it—the verbiage is the same as was used before the Vegas attacks. My assessment, and that which I have conveyed to my counterparts at the Security Services, is that we are looking at an attack equal or greater in scope.”
“Crap,” Jimenez observed quietly, summing up what they were all thinking in a single word.
“Your liaison officer—this Darren Roth,” Kranemeyer began again after a brief pause. “What can you tell me about him?”
Thomas glanced over at Jimenez as if looking for guidance, but there was none to be found there. The former Marine’s face was impassive. “He’s an extremely…competent officer. Good in the field—clearly more comfortable there than behind a desk. He—”
On-screen, Kranemeyer held up a hand. “I can learn all that from Roth’s jacket, which was compiled by the purportedly knowledgeable people over at the Intel Directorate. Give me something they can’t.”
There was no room for hesitation. “He’s very close to a Five intelligence officer on his team,” Thomas replied, his mind moving back to the previous night. The takedown of Besimi.
The look on Roth’s face—his angry retort. “Bugger tactical authority. This is Mehreen.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Mehreen Crawford—she’s Pakistani, fluent in Pashto, Arabic and Urdu.”
“I know her,” Jimenez interjected quietly from his seat behind the desk. “Top flight officer, one of Julian’s best people.”
“And the nature of the relationship between her and Roth?”
“I have nothing solid,” Thomas replied, spreading his hands as he glanced up at the screen. He could still remember the look in the former Royal Marine’s eyes when he’d thought she was in danger. It had gone beyond concern for a team member. “I can also tell you that he’s carrying.”
That got the station chief’s attention. “No way. The Security Service doesn’t issue sidearms.” He laughed, a short, barking sound. “They leave that for us cowboys.”
A flash of annoyance passed across Thomas’ face at the attempt at humor. “I know what a gun looks like when it prints. Legal, illegal—I don’t have the answer to that, but Roth has a gun. And he’s keeping us in the dark.”
2:48 P.M.
The Home Office
2 Marsham Street, London
“I’m sorry, Julian, but my hands are tied. They truly are.” Kathleen Napier pushed back the chair, rising to her feet.
Only the third woman to hold the office of Home Secretary, she was a tall, stately woman just a few years younger than Marsh—graying hair framing a face the years had not left untouched. “Even assuming you could find Tarik Abdul Muhammad—which is itself an uncertainty at this moment—to incarcerate him on no more evidence than we have now, evidence obtained by methods that the Prime Minister has officially denied utilizing…it would be a media firestorm.”
“A media firestorm…” the director-general mused, leaning forward in his seat as he gazed at her. He had known Napier for years, but had never expected that she would be one to climb so far. So fast. “Are you quite sure the avoidance of that is worth risking a bona fide firestorm?”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that despite these political considerations, it is the opinion of the Security Service that the danger of allowing him to retain his freedom is no longer outweighed by the dangers posed by the backlash from the Islamic community, of the civil liberties groups. We don’t need ‘evidence’—the man is here illegally. That will suffice for our purposes, much as Capone’s tax evasion did for the cousins last century.”
Napier turned back, her hands resting on the back of her chair. Fixing him with a keen gaze. “Is that the opinion of the Security Service, Julian—or yours?”
“I was twenty years old when Five recruited me, still just a lad studying the classics at Cambridge—Pliny, Ovid. Homer. I’ve been a spook ever since.” He shrugged, not a trace of irony in his voice. “The opinion of the Security Service…mine? I fail to see how there is a measurable difference between the two.”
She sighed, a heavy, weary sound. “Then you’ve been in the government long enough to understand realpolitik, Julian. The sacrifices which must be made so that the ship of state sails on. Perhaps last night what you’re asking would have been possible, but after Pearson’s disastrous interview on Sky News this morning, after the riot at Washwood Heath…we cannot be seen as standing alongside such Islamophobia—as condoning such hatred for the thousands of innocent Muslims who live and work among us on a daily basis.”
A pause before she went on, as if she was giving time for her words to sink in. “I need you and your people to find Tarik Abdul Muhammad and monitor his movements, as before. That is all—do you understand?”
“Of course,” Marsh replied, buttoning the center button of his suit as he rose to leave. “‘The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold…’”
“What?”
“It’s Lord Byron—just a relic of my misspent youth.”
“Ah…” was her only response, seeming to accept his answer. “One more thing: you were in Cambridge with Arthur Colville, were you not?”
It was an odd question. “The publisher? I was an upper classman when he first entered the university, but yes. Why?”
Napier gestured to the front page of the Daily Standard lying there on her desk, the headline still screaming out defiance. “I want you to set up a meet. Find out what he knows. See if you can convince him to take a step back.”
10:12 A.M. Eastern Time
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
“I copy you loud and clear, Bravo-Actual,” Ron Carter heard the comms chief say, staring up at the imagery on the screens lining the north wall of the Op-Center, a slate-gray landscape as stark and bare as the surface of the moon. “We’re getting the Reaper’s feeds coming through now.”
This was bad, he thought, eyeing the panorama spread out before them. No matter how carefully you planned a mission, you could never account for everything. And it was what you hadn’t accounted for that came back to bite you.
“What’s going on?” Carter glanced back to see Kranemeyer standing a few feet away, clearly just arrived on the floor.
“Bravo Team in the Sinai,” he said, turning away. “They were planning to go in on the compound tonight—got surprised in the hide by a pair of Bedouin shepherds shortly after 1600 hours local time.”
The DCS swore under his breath. “And…?”
“And the Sa’ka lost their heads,” the analyst replied, referencing the Egyptian special forces. “Cut both men down in a hail of automatic weapons fire.”
Alerting everyone within five miles, he didn’t say. “Coordinating” with local forces was ever a gamble at best—most days a roulette wheel would offer better odds.
“With the mission compromised, Nakamura was left with no choice but to order the assault. The result was nine Ansar militants KIA, with another five taken priso
ner. The Egyptian commandos lost three men—at least one injured in their own fire on entry. Bravo Team, however, suffered no casualties.”
Kranemeyer grimaced, shaking his head. “What about Umar ibn Hassan?”
“Nowhere to be found,” Carter said grimly. “No evidence he had ever been there. A dry hole.”
It happened. Intel was bad. People lied. Best you could do was pick up and move on. Chase another shadow.
“Make sure I’m fully briefed on where the operation proceeds from this point,” the DCS said, eyeing the drone imagery with a critical glance as he turned to leave.
He paused a moment, suddenly extending a folder in his hand. A personnel jacket. “Oh, and Ron…with regards to what we discussed the other day. The Mali operation.”
Carter took the folder from him, a chill running through his body as he opened it—his eyes scanning down the page. “You can’t be serious. You don’t honestly expect me to—”
“Oh, but I am,” Kranemeyer responded, his dark eyes never leaving Carter’s face. “And I do…”
4:30 P.M. Greenwich Mean Time
The M6 Motorway
North of Claughton
“I understand, Alec. Just get me the results as soon as you can get the data from the NCA.” Mehreen sighed, rubbing a dark hand across her forehead as she stared out through the windshield of the BMW. Shows on the telly made DNA look so magical, so instant. The reality was that they wouldn’t have a positive ID on the charred bodies from the bombing for weeks. And she knew that. “I have a bad feeling about this, remember just a few days ago—the Para shot dead in the countryside north of Leeds?”
“I do,” MacCallum replied. “Are you saying that they’re connected?”
Was she? She hesitated, remembering Nichols’ face. The way he had looked when admitting to Booth’s murder. No remorse. But MacCallum couldn’t be told the truth of that, couldn’t learn what she herself had done.
This was no time for her to find herself pulled into the type of internal investigation that would inevitably ensue. Not with Besimi being held on suspicion of conspiracy with terrorists. Not with her own nephew in danger.
“I don’t know.” It was only half a lie.
“Mehreen,” the section chief began again, a distinct note of hesitation in his tone. “there is something more. Something I was able to pull up.”
“What is it?” There was something strange about his voice, a dark sense of foreboding that chilled her to the bone.
“It’s the charred-out Explorer…I got a partial from what was left of the plates—ran it through our database. Got a hit. It’s registered to one Sean Dugan, a citizen of the Republic of Ireland.”
“So?”
Another pause. “Sean Dugan is a suspected alias of Stephen Flaharty.”
She turned away for a moment, her eyes shut tightly, struggling against the emotion that threatened to overwhelm her. “Oh, God…”
6:07 P.M.
A warehouse
Ashton-under-Lyne
“That’s where they are,” Harry announced, sliding back into the car and handing the binoculars across to Flaharty. The man didn’t look good, the pallor of his cheeks almost impossible to disguise.
“Are you sure?” the arms dealer asked, wincing as he shifted his position in the passenger seat.
He nodded, his eyes still focused on their target across the road. The view from the parking lot wasn’t as good as the one he’d had from the top of a nearby overpass only a few minutes before, but he could still make out the front gates. “It’s the only warehouse within a reasonable radius of the tracker beacon. They have two men out front, both with sidearms, probably another one or more in the back. There’s a utility vehicle fifty meters back of the main gate, near the sentries. Even money they’re keeping the long arms in there, under wraps.”
“Likely,” Flaharty responded. “It’s the way I’d play it.”
“Another car’s there now, couldn’t make out the full license plate, but I think I got enough before they pulled it into the warehouse itself.”
Harry brushed back the sleeve of his jacket, revealing a row of letters and numbers scrawled onto the winter-pale skin of his wrist.
“So, how do we get in?” Malone asked, casting a shadow over them as he came up beside the car. That was always the question of any op, after the reconnaissance had been done, after you had all the intel you could garner. How?
But not today.
“We don’t,” Harry replied calmly. “This was a recce, nothing more.”
The enforcer swore, placing a meaty hand on the edge of the car’s lowered window. “They butchered our lads, Stephen,” he said looking across Harry into the arms dealer’s eyes. His voice low, earnest. “Good men, all of them. Can’t let that stand. We need to hit back, fast and hard.”
It was the wrong move, and Harry knew it—but he could see Flaharty beginning to waver. Revenge.
It was a thirst he knew all too well…the desire that had gnawed at his heart since Vegas.
“If you do this,” he countered, trying to stay one step ahead of the demon, “you’re going to throw it all away. Every chance we have of getting to the bottom of their play. They’ll know that we’re tracking them—they’ll know we’re out here. And they will come for us with everything they have.”
“Do you have a better plan?” Flaharty asked, glancing between him and Malone.
Harry tapped his wrist, indicating the license number. “We watch. And wait.”
It was dark inside the warehouse, fluorescent lights providing only pale illumination among the stacks of crates—the last faint orange-red rays of sunlight making their way through the skylights above.
“Are you sure no women or children will be killed?” Paul Gordon asked, perspiration glinting on his forehead as he straightened, reaching over to take another bag of fertilizer from Conor Hale.
A weary shake of the head as the former SAS man handed it over, his sleeves rolled up above his elbows. “This is war, Paul. There’s never any way to be sure. We both know that.”
Hale seemed to sense his hesitation and leaned in closer. “Look, mate, this isn’t hard. Your grandfather flew for the RAF over Germany, didn’t he?”
Gordon nodded reluctantly. “Aye, that he was. The bombardier on a Halifax.”
“And tell me honestly,” Hale continued, “when he opened those bomb bay doors…how did he know—how could he be certain that the people he dropped those bombs on were grown men wearing Wehrmacht grey? It’s no different for us.”
“But we’re going to time the blast to minimize the collateral damage?” Perhaps it was a useless question, Gordon thought, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. Perhaps they all deserved it in the end, but he had to ask. For Alice.
“Of course,” came the reply. “The bomb will go off hours before it’s even open to the public. All we’re doing here is sending a message, mate. That’s all.”
He took a step back as Hale placed the final bag of fertilizer in the boot of the car, watching as the former sergeant spread a tarpaulin over the load. “We’d be safer using the Semtex,” he cautioned, his gaze drifting over to the smaller crates by the rifles. “It’s more stable, easier to reliably time to go off when we want it to and not before. Or after.”
“And,” Hale straightened, a hard look in his eyes, “it points a great big bloody arrow right back at us. You go using plastique—that’s the mark of professionals. Of funding. It compromises the mission.”
He could sense that he was on dangerous ground, but he had no other choice. “Then why did we go to all the trouble of getting it if we’re too afraid to use it?”
Hale pushed past him, drawing car keys from his pocket as he moved. “Oh, don’t you worry. That time will come.”
“We have movement—they’re coming out.” It was Malone’s voice coming over Harry’s Bluetooth headset. The Irishman had taken up an overwatch position about five hundred meters to their west, with a better line of si
ght on the warehouse itself.
“It’s the sedan?” Harry asked, his mouth still full of potato crisps. Or chips, as he would have called them in the States. He dropped the half-empty bag onto the seat beside him as he reached for the binoculars.
“Aye.” And sure enough, there it was—the two guards he had observed earlier moving to swing the gates open, allowing the car to depart. Swinging inward, he thought, mentally noting it against future need.
An inward-opening gate was vulnerable to a ramming attack. An assault would be counterproductive, as he had warned Flaharty, but he’d been at war for too long for the observation to escape him.
“I want you to get in your car and follow them,” he ordered calmly. “See if you can stay on them—see where they go.”
“Is that a fact? And what will you be doing in the meantime, boyo?”
Harry glanced over at Flaharty, his lips forming something that could have barely passed for a smile. “Waiting…for the changing of the guard.”
7:45 P.M.
Leeds
She had been in the car for two hours, just watching—absorbing the sights and sounds of the neighborhood as night fell. The place she had once called home.
Not much had changed, by the looks of it—still the old flats dating back decades, the time-worn red brick that had characterized Leeds ever since its days as a center of the wool trade.
Mehreen sighed, running a hand across her face. She’d lied. Told Darren that she was following up on a lead in the city.
It couldn’t have been farther from the truth, she thought, remembering his final words. “Be careful, Mehr. No telling who might have seen you with Besimi—who he might have told. He knows your name, he knows who you really are.”
As did the people in the house across the street from where she sat in the driver’s seat of the BMW.
She took a deep breath, looking down at her watch. Knowing that she was only postponing the inevitable.
Her hand moved to open the door and then she was out, rounding the front of the car to head across the street, her jacket pulled close around her body. The wind tousling her dark hair.
So many years. She stopped by the ground-level door of the flat, hesitating as she lifted her hand to knock. It was a strange feeling, the reluctance. The dread.
Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors Book 3) Page 23