Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors Book 3)

by Stephen England

  7:00 A.M.

  Leeds, North Yorkshire

  No! Harry heard the shots—their echo ringing again and again off the canyon of buildings surrounding them. A death knell.

  Time itself seemed to slow down, every movement sluggish, but revealed in startling clarity. He heard Mehreen scream, saw the imam stagger back, then go down. Crumpling into the muddy gravel of the vacant lot. Gun.

  His own weapon coming up instinctively, his left hand moving to support it. Aydin’s face coming into focus through the iron sights of the Sig-Sauer. Target.

  There was no hesitation, no time for thought. Training taking over. The trigger broke under his finger, a small red hole appearing in the middle of the target’s forehead as the pistol recoiled into Harry’s hands.

  The boy’s head snapped back, his legs going out from under him as Harry put two more rounds in his upper chest. Target down.

  It was only then, as Aydin’s body collapsed into the dirt like a broken doll—the detonator falling from his nerveless fingers—that everything snapped back into focus. Time breaking from its ennui.

  Harry stalked forward, the pistol still clenched in his right hand, until he stood over the corpse—looking down into those young eyes, now staring sightlessly up at the sky.

  Threat eliminated.

  A human life reduced, in those final moments, to a target with a gun. And a detonator. Put down like a rabid dog.

  He glimpsed Mehreen’s face as she pushed past him, dropping to her knees beside her nephew’s body.

  Heard her keening wail of anguish, such a familiar sound. Agonizing, unearthly. He’d heard it far too many times in his years across the Middle East.

  Been the cause of it, far too many times.

  Ismail Besimi lay a few feet away, his leg twisted beneath him—his breathing heavy and labored. His crisp white shirt sodden red with blood. His eyes beginning to glaze over, death waiting in the wings.

  “Just hang in there,” he whispered, kneeling over the old man, clasping his limp right hand in both of his. “We’re going to get you help—you’re going to pull through this.”

  It was a lie, and they both knew it. He was far past any help. The imam coughed, blood flecking his beard as he struggled to speak. “Don’t risk…yourself, my son. It’s too late f-for that.”

  Logic told him the old man was right, but everything in him warred against the decision. Logic could be such a liar. “I’m sorry.”

  Survivor’s guilt. His turn, by now long overdue and nowhere in sight.

  Besimi grimaced, suppressing another cough with a mighty effort. “Don’t be—death is something that comes for every man. And it has found me as I lived, in the service of my God. I am ready to face the Questioners.”

  Munkar and Nakir. Angels who came to test the faith of the dead. “Who is your Lord? Who is your Prophet? What is your religion?”

  Harry started to respond, but the old man cut him off. “Your sorrow—save it for Aydin. Mourn a life lost before it could begin. A life stolen.”

  His left hand came up, seizing Harry’s wrist with what remained of his ebbing strength. His eyes shining with a peculiar intensity. “You were right, after all—and I wrong. The wolves have preyed upon my people for far too long. The time has come…for a hunter. Pr-promise me you won’t fail.”

  He looked down, feeling the anger burn within him as he watched the old man’s life slip away, his hand falling from Harry’s arm. “I promise.”

  7:03 A.M.

  The Home Office

  2 Marsham Street, London

  “You’re asking that I give you authorization to bring him in.” The Home Secretary stopped pacing behind her desk for a moment, staring across to where Marsh sat.

  “Precisely,” the DG replied, adjusting his suit as he sat there—watching her closely. In all the years he had known her, decisiveness never had been Napier’s strong suit. She had risen to the top by carefully gauging the political winds, ever making sure they were in her favor.

  But which way do you tack when no wind is favorable?

  That was the one question no politician ever wanted to face…and also the one that he faced on a daily basis at Thames House.

  “The political climate has only worsened since we last spoke of this, Julian,” she began, seeming to measure her words with the most extreme of care. “The bombing at Madina, the rioting that has followed all across the UK—it took many previously available options off the table.”

  “The flames of which the Shaikh has almost certainly had a hand in fanning,” Marsh observed coolly.

  She turned back to look at him. “‘Almost certainly’ isn’t something I can take to the PM.”

  7:05 A.M.

  Leeds, North Yorkshire

  No. Harry shook his head, gazing down into the lifeless eyes of the imam. His broken body sprawled in the muddy gravel, his blood mingling with the rainwater. It had happened once more, despite all his efforts. Despite everything. In a world full of evil, the good were ever taken first. Leaving behind those…far less worthy. Like himself.

  “Jazak’allah khair,” he whispered in Arabic, reaching up to brush his hand across Ismail’s leathery face, closing those unseeing eyes for one final time. That most futile of prayers. May God reward you goodness.

  He rose to his feet, hearing once more the sound of approaching sirens. His face hardening into an implacable mask. There was no more time for any of this. He had been keeping to the backbeat ever since he had arrived in the UK.

  Watching, waiting. Reacting.

  No more. It was time to cut off the head of the snake. He walked over to where Mehreen still knelt, cradling Aydin’s shattered head against her chest—his blood staining her hands. Her clothes.

  She was staring off into the distance past the chainlink—a vacant look he knew all too well. Her dark cheeks wet with tears.

  “It’s time we were going.” He knew how the words sounded, but he was too far gone to recall them. The anger welling up within him seeking a target.

  Any target.

  “That’s how it is for you, isn’t it?” She asked after a moment, her voice sharp. Brittle as ice. “He meant nothing to you…did he? Just another pawn in your bloody great game. A piece to be played. Like you have me. Tell me, did your ‘friendship’ with Nick mean anything to you—or was he just a piece too?”

  Enough. Her words a knife, stabbing deep into his heart. Again and again.

  She shook her head when he failed to respond, rising to her feet as he took a step away, unscrewing the suppressor from the Sig’s muzzle and tucking the long black cylinder into an inner pocket of his jacket. “Is it even possible for someone to be more to you than that? Are you even capable of such a thing?”

  “Stop it.”

  “You just turn your back and walk away from everything you’ve done—the lives you’ve destroyed,” she continued, her eyes shining with tears. “As if they never existed, as if they weren’t even real. Aydin was real, and now he’s dead. Because you killed him. You have to face that.”

  “You want to know who killed your nephew?” Harry demanded, almost spitting the words out as he wheeled to face her—his face dark with barely-restrained fury. “You did—the moment you made the decision to go cowboy at the station. We had a plan that might—just might—have kept things from going sideways, but you knew better, didn’t you? And he was dead from that moment on.”

  She just stood there, seemingly stunned into silence as he stooped down, pushing aside the folds of Aydin’s hoodie and fumbling for the straps securing the suicide vest to his young body.

  It was a moment before they pulled free, and then he brusquely pushed the boy’s limp, lifeless arms away, stripping him of the lethal garment. “What are you doing?”

  He straightened, vest in hand, his face hard as he stared into her eyes. “Something that should have been done a long time ago.”

  Chapter 22

  7:14 A.M.

  The Home Office

 
; 2 Marsham Street, London

  The phone vibrated within the inner pocket of Marsh’s suit for the second time, but he ignored it, his attention focused on Kathleen Napier.

  “I can offer my recommendations to the PM, Julian,” she said, spreading her hands as she turned to face him. “That’s really all I can do.”

  And that was a lie, he thought, his face neutral. She had the capacity to authorize the Shaikh’s detention on her own, but not the will. Ever seeking cover. Paralyzed in the face of hard choices.

  He inclined his head to one side, smiling tightly as he rose, buttoning his suit jacket. “Thank you, Home Secretary,” he said, reaching out to take her extended hand. “Your support is…ever appreciated.”

  Her hand grasped his with all the warmth of a dead fish, her best politician’s smile plastered to her face. “And I trust you know that you will always have it—to the extent that I am able.”

  She had mastered the art of the caveat long ago.

  “Of course.” He too could play the politician, when necessary. “I will keep you apprised of developments.”

  The DG didn’t touch his phone until he was well away from Napier’s office—moving down the broad corridor Home Office natives referred to as “the Street”, the morning rays of sun shining down on him through the colored glass above his head.

  Two missed calls. He sighed heavily, punching the call-back button and listening to it ring. “Talk to me, Darren. What is your status on the Shaikh?”

  It was a moment before his field officer’s voice came on the line. “He’s not here.”

  7:16 A.M.

  The MV Percy Phillips

  Grimsby Harbor

  “You’re right,” Gordon said slowly, looking over to where Hale sat, the field-stripped L42A1 laid out before him as he pushed a rod down the barrel, a still-white cleaning patch emerging from the breech. A single brass 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge stood upright beside the sniper rifle’s bolt. “Everything with Alice—I suppose I just haven’t been able to wrap my head around all of it. That it’s really come to this.”

  That you would ask me to betray my country, he thought but didn’t say.

  It was a moment before his old comrade looked up from the gun. “But it has…look, mate, I don’t blame you for your reaction to what I’ve asked of you. If I had told myself this five years ago, I would ha’ sworn I was taking the piss. But our country has fallen a long way in five years.”

  That it had. He couldn’t have argued with that, even if he had wanted to. But facilitating a terrorist attack like this, even if the Queen’s life was to be spared by dint of their own marksmanship in the end—it was unspeakable. The lives that would be lost before this was all over.

  “And they’re doin’ sod-all to stop it,” Hale continued, shaking his head. “From the Queen to the PM, all the way down. Not a thing. Cowards, the lot of them, holed up in their bloody halls of power, trembling and hoping the hajjis come for them last. They fill the moat of the Tower of London with red poppies, speak of the ‘brave soldiers’ who have ‘defended the realm’—but all they have for us is words. And that leaves us to save what we can. As ever before.”

  He paused. “I wouldn’t have asked this of you, Paul, if I thought I couldn’t trust you. Or if I didn’t need you. I have a lot of good lads. Most of them infantry, precious few marksmen among that lot.”

  Gordon laughed despite himself. Despite the fear clawing at his heart. The Army’s standard-issue rifle—the “Politician”, as British soldiers had once derisively dubbed the SA80 bullpup—was hardly a tool that lent itself to the skillset of a sniper.

  “And I’m not going to be lyin’ to you. This is like to be a one-way trip. The odds of us coming out of those woods any other way than in a body bag—or a lorry headed to Paddington Green…they’re not ones I’d take to Monte Carlo. But I need to know, Paul—more than I’ve ever needed to know anything in my life—are you with me?”

  “Yes. Yes…I am.”

  7:57 A.M.

  Leeds City Station

  So this is how it will go, Harry thought—his own reflection staring back at him from the men’s room mirror. Hard eyes the color of gunmetal, anger simmering just barely concealed beneath the surface.

  Alone. He wasn’t, really—the sound a toilet being flushed behind him reminding him of that reality. The distant sound of the PA system announcing departing trains from the platform without. But in terms of his mission, he had never been farther out in the cold.

  On his own.

  The past two hours bearing stark testament to just how badly that could go wrong. Let me count the ways.

  He thrust his hands beneath the faucet and felt the warm water cascade over them, scrubbing away Ismail Besimi’s dried blood.

  “You just turn your back and walk away.” He closed his eyes, trying and failing to shut out Mehreen’s reproach.

  He’d found the Audi swarmed by constables when he tried to return to it—a part of him hoped that she had known enough to stay away.

  The other part no longer cared. Walk away.

  The dangerous part was he had known better, allowed his exhaustion to override his judgment. Stolen vehicles had a shelf life—and they had pushed the Audi far past the limit. Which meant the authorities might well have been able to trace their steps farther back than he was comfortable with.

  He needed sleep. He needed a plan.

  And he needed the means to execute it, he realized—pushing his way into an empty stall and latching it as he leaned back against the partition, dropping the new duffel bag containing Aydin’s vest—its remote detonator now safely deactivated—onto the tile of the floor and unzipping his jacket.

  The Sig-Sauer came out in his hand, his thumb hitting the magazine release. Only six rounds left.

  Not nearly enough.

  From without, he could hear the faint voice of the PA system, calmly announcing, “The next train at Platform 8 is the 08:05 East Coast Service to London Kings Cross, calling at Wakefield Westgate, Doncaster…”

  Three minutes left.

  It was time to regroup.

  8:19 A.M.

  Thames House

  London

  “The Shaikh. What can you give me?” Marsh asked, coming back through the doors of the Centre.

  MacCallum shook his head. “I have Kirkpatrick running CCTV on City Square and the surrounding area—she has nothing yet. Room service was requested thirty minutes before Roth and his team arrived on-site. By the time it was delivered, the room was empty.”

  The eternal danger of playing defense. Reacting. The director-general’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re telling me he was warned?”

  “There’s currently no evidence to reach that conclusion,” the section chief replied. The DG found himself smiling despite their circumstances…the Scotsman was ever the analyst. Never willing to overreach beyond what could be directly inferred from available intel.

  It was a valuable, if at times frustrating, trait. “And we have another problem,” MacCallum went on, pulling a picture from one of the folders in his hand. The stripped upper torso of an old man, lying flat under bright lights, his eyes closed. “Just before seven, North Yorkshire had a report of shots fired less than a mile from the hotel. Responding constables found two bodies, both dead of gunshot wounds. Casings from at least two different handguns.”

  “But this is—”

  A curt nod. “Ismail Besimi.”

  Marsh shook his head in disbelief, staring at the man’s body. “What was he doing there?”

  “We don’t know. The other body,” the section chief said, pulling another photo from the folder, “was that of a young male, Asian—maybe 15-16. Too young for a licence…no other forms of ID found on him either, just a few pound notes and a ticket for National Express from the City Centre Station, a bus which departed about twenty minutes prior for Victoria Station. We’re still working to establish whether there’s any connection to a reported disturbance this morning at the station.
”

  Marsh nodded. “Good man—stay on it and let me know when you have something. And if anyone from the Home Office reaches out regarding the status of our operation with the Shaikh, stall them.”

  11:34 A.M.

  The offices of the UK Daily Standard

  Central London

  “…are swelling the crowd of protesters—estimated by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Andrew Mayne-Thornton at five thousand—as the far-right British Defence Coalition prepares to march upon the Tower Hamlets at noon today. Also present, to counter the BDC, are members of United Against Racism…”

  The Sky News television cameras instinctively panned to the figure of an overweight young college student standing in the middle of the street clad in only her underwear—what remained of her cropped hair dyed orange and spiked—rubbing a graffiti-desecrated flag of St. George provocatively across her bum.

  The fall of the West. Summed up in a single image, Arthur Colville thought, turning his eyes away from the screen and checking his phone once more.

  Nothing.

  No messages, no news alerts. Nothing trending on social media. He checked his watch once more against his computer screen to make sure one of them wasn’t wrong. The Shaikh’s bomber was to have struck Victoria Station by now.

  The coup de grace, driving the Tower Hamlets march into the type of violence the police would be unable to contain—violence stoked by Hale’s men in the crowd.

  But everything depended upon that bomb.

  11:41 A.M.

  The Queens Hotel

  Leeds, North Yorkshire

  There was nothing like being a liaison officer to drive a man to drink, Thomas thought—eyeing Roth across the hotel suite. The Brits’ operation was going sideways and there wasn’t much he was even permitted to do about it.

  The bed looked decidedly well-used and was no doubt a treasure trove of Tarik Abdul Muhammad’s DNA, but that didn’t solve any immediate problems.

  Their dilemma wasn’t identifying the man, but finding him. He stepped out into the hall, rubbing his forehead. The hotel bar was two floors down. Just a quick elevator ride away, a few short steps.