by Chris Ryan
Will nodded. 'It won't go wrong,' he said.
He looked to either side of him, where Drew and Kennedy were standing up straight, exuding confidence and menace. Their silent support made him feel a great deal more sure of himself.
'It won't go wrong.'
*
Latifa Ahmed remained on the stretcher bed, huddled on her front, her legs bent under her and her head in her arms. She had not opened her eyes since they had taken the soldier, Will Jackson, away, but she could tell that the two men who had been interrogating her were still in the room. It wasn't over yet: they were just waiting for the go-ahead from the man in the black coat.
Her body was shaking uncontrollably and though her lungs had been replenished with precious air, her abdomen ached as if she had been beaten.
They had different ways of torturing people, these Westerners with their white coats and syringes. But deep down, she had fully realised in the last few minutes, they were no better than her Taliban torturers. The sensation of what had just occurred, the feeling of drowning, of knowing that death was almost upon you, was as terrifying as anything she had undergone in Afghanistan.
'Get out.'
The voice made her open her eyes and for an instant she stopped sobbing and looked up. It was Jackson and he was talking to the two men who had been interrogating her.
'I said, get out.'
The bald man, the one who had put the film over her face, looked as if he might argue, but then he clearly thought better of it and pushed past Jackson out into the corridor. The other man followed.
And then Jackson was there by her. He looked stern. Tired, but stern. Something in his face reminded her of Faisal. What was it? Determination, perhaps. Strength.
'We're taking you back to the UK,' he said, firmly.
Latifa gave a weak smile.
'For more torture?' she asked.
His lip curled slightly. 'No,' he said. 'No more torture.'
An enormous wave of relief crashed over her. If anyone else had said this to her, she wouldn't have believed them: she would have just thought it was part of the torture. But there was something genuine about this man. She didn't think he would lie to her.
'Thank you,' she said, simply. 'For everything. You are a good man.'
Jackson's face remained stern. 'Don't be too grateful,' he said, flatly. 'You're coming with us for a reason.'
'And what is that?'
'To lure Faisal Ahmed out of hiding.'
Latifa closed her eyes as a strange sense of numbness passed over her. She coughed, painfully. 'You wish to use me as—' She struggled for the word. 'As bait?'
Jackson's face remained stony as she gazed up at him.
'You and my brother,' she said weakly. 'You are both soldiers. You both fight for what you think is right.'
'Perhaps,' Jackson replied. 'But we have very different ideas of how to go about it. Of what is acceptable.' He bent down slightly so that his face was closer to hers. 'Don't get too hung up on what a good man I am, Miss Ahmed,' he whispered. 'I am going to catch your brother. And when I do, I won't hesitate to do what has to be done.'
She could hear his breathing. Slow. Controlled. He meant what he said.
'And what is it,' she asked, steadfastly holding his gaze, 'that has to be done?'
The question hung in the air.
'They say,' she continued, 'that my brother is a great fighter. One of the best. You understand, I suppose, that if he believes you have been mistreating me, he will kill you.'
She looked up at him, as earnestly as she could.
'Not if I kill him first,' Jackson said, gruffly. She felt her stomach tighten as he turned and walked out of the room.
Latifa Ahmed watched him go with a sickening sense of apprehension. Then, once more, she fell back on to the stretcher bed and waited for the soldiers to wheel her out to the plane.
THIRTEEN
London. Later that day.
'I sure hope you know what you're doing, Lowther.'
Don Priestley sat in Pankhurst's comfortable office. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and the C-17 Globemaster had only touched down at Brize Norton at 08.30 that morning. Pankhurst was tired, ratty and - though he would never have admitted it to his American counterpart - not at all sure that he knew what he was doing.
'I was there, Don,' he replied, impatiently. He rubbed his forehead with his fingers as the memory of Latifa Ahmed's cling-filmed mouth passed through his mind. He'd put a brave face on it in front of Jackson, but just the experience of watching it had been traumatic enough. The image wouldn't leave him. 'I watched the interrogation. Jackson was right - they weren't going to break her.'
Priestley raised an eyebrow. 'Maybe they would have had a better chance if your guy hadn't kicked them in the cojones.' He waved a piece of paper in the Director General's direction. 'They made their report already.'
Pankhurst sighed heavily in frustration. It was certainly true that Jackson's heroics hadn't helped matters; but then, maybe, if he hadn't intervened . . .
'They did it three times, Don. I've seen the same statistics as you. Even the most hardened terror suspects fold in a matter of seconds using your clever little technique.'
'It's not my technique, Lowther,' Priestley replied, seemingly a little abashed. 'The Japanese have been doing it for years. All I'm saying is, are you sure this Jackson character is the right guy to take it from here?'
'I wish he weren't. I don't like him. He's insubordinate and a loose cannon. But we've got to be pragmatic. Jackson and his team just whisked that woman away from under the noses of the Taliban. That's no mean feat. And he still wants Ahmed's head on a plate even more than we do.'
'I don't know about that,' Priestley murmured. 'You've seen the latest intel.'
'Enough to know it's close.' He stood up and looked out of his window.'Shit,' he swore suddenly and Priestley looked surprised to see an expletive leave Pankhurst's lips. 'Sometimes I think every man Jack on the streets knows more about Faisal Ahmed than we do. We've got chatter coming in from all sorts of unexpected quarters - just last night we took two Muslim teenagers into custody. They both admitted they knew the name Faisal Ahmed, that he was planning something. But that's all they knew.'
'You couldn't probe a little further?' Priestley asked, delicately.
'No,' Pankhurst insisted. 'Not with their lawyers sitting next to them. And we'd be airlifting planes full of them to Poland if we did it your way.'
'Like I say,' Priestley complained. 'It's not my way.'
'Whatever you say. All I know is I'm hearing the same rumours from everywhere. He's planning something soon, but no one knows where or when.'
'Where are they keeping the sister?'
'At the moment she's in protective custody in Paddington. News of her "arrest" should hit the wires in an hour so, then she's being moved to a safe house in the North Downs. Jackson's prepping it at the moment.' Pankhurst passed his hand over his eyes. 'I don't know when that man ever sleeps. Anyway, it's a location Ahmed knows - we used it to debrief him when he first arrived in the UK. Jackson thought that if we used a familiar site it would make it more likely that he would try a rescue attempt.'
Priestley looked dubious. 'It would also make it more likely that Ahmed succeeds. And actually having the woman there, on site, seems like madness to me. This is pretty highrisk, Lowther, if you don't mind me saying so.'
Pankhurst shrugged. 'Jackson's convinced that if Ahmed has any suspicion that his sister isn't really there, he'll abort. He says it's what he would do.'
'Can't you at least have some proper back-up? A cordon around the area - men nearby ready to go in if Ahmed does show his face?'
'How can I, Don? Five's compromised. If I mobilise everyone, I risk giving Ahmed a direct feed into everything that's going on.'
Priestley's eyes narrowed and he looked as if he was about to say something. In the end he seemed to decide against it, but he didn't look happy.
Pankhurst noticed tha
t look. 'If you have a better plan, Don, I'm all ears.'
But Priestley, for all his criticism, clearly didn't. 'They've been instructed, I hope, to shoot to kill. If they give Ahmed a second's leeway—'
'Of course, Don. They're professionals. They know what to do.'
'Good,' the American nodded. 'You have a shortlist of Ahmed's possible targets in London?' he asked, though it sounded more like a statement of fact than a question.
'Of course - the usual suspects. Thames Barrier, Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, any of the bridges. Our people still think the Tube is his most likely target. Security levels have been raised, but you can't stop and search everybody that uses the Underground. God only knows how many casualties there'll be if he puts his mind to it down there - not to mention the fact that London will grind to a halt for months.'
There was a pause.
'Cities bounce back,' Priestley said, quietly. 'Look at New York.'
Pankhurst blinked. 'You won't be offended, I hope, if I fail to see much comfort in that notion.'
'Of course not, Lowther,' Priestley replied, his voice soft, reasonable. 'Of course not. But you know that if my country can do anything to help. Anything at all.'
Pankhurst turned around. He regretted having snapped at Priestley - they were on the same side, after all. 'Thank you, Don,' he replied. 'I understand your President has already made the same offer to the Prime Minister.'
'And if Will Jackson needs any back-up whatsoever - men, equipment. I'm sure he's well prepared, but the offer's there.'
Pankhurst rolled his eyes. 'You know what these SAS boys are like,' he said. 'They'd rather accept help from St Trinian's than Delta Force. Question of pride, I think.'
Priestley looked confused. 'St Trinian's?' he asked. 'Who are they?'
Pankhurst smiled tiredly. 'Never mind, Don,' he said. 'Never mind.'
*
Will looked up at the imposing building in front of him. About twenty miles south of London, nestled in the chalky North Downs of Surrey, two miles from the quaint market town of Dorking, Maple Hall was a large, deserted country house. Will had specified to Pankhurst on the flight back from Poland exactly what it was he wanted. Ideally, it should be somewhere Ahmed knew, because that would bolster his confidence, make it more likely he would try and spring Latifa. It needed to be somewhere fairly large, so that their Afghan terrorist would feel he had options when it came to devising an approach route. But there also needed to be space around the building, so that the SAS team could keep up a high level of surveillance. When Faisal Ahmed approached, they wanted to know about it.
From his satellite phone on board the plane, Pankhurst had come up trumps. Maple Hall was just right.
The spook who had driven Will and Kennedy there from Brize Norton had told him something about its history. During the Second World War it had been a regional centre of operations. After the war, it had become a barracks of sorts, a place for soldiers and special forces on training exercises in this part of the world. For the last fifteen years, however, it had been pretty much out of service, one of a number of MOD buildings that were kept on simply so that the Government had somewhere private and out of the way, should they ever need it. Ahmed had been debriefed here on his arrival in the UK. He wasn't the kind of guy anyone wanted strolling straight into Thames House, after all.
It was a grand building, imposingly square with a high, pitched roof. If a child were to draw a picture of a house, it would end up being a similar shape to Maple Hall. The high walls were a faded, crumbling yellow and each side of the house had four large, tall windows. The main door had once been painted red, but the paint was now peeling off; however, the window frames seemed sound. A straight road led up to the house, with neatly trimmed lawns. You'd be able to see anyone approaching from that direction; not that you would approach from there, if you wanted to do it surreptitiously.
Country roads ran along the west and south sides of the house; the remaining sides, as well as the areas beyond the roads, were densely forested and ran uphill to the east. Along the east side - the back of the house - there was a high fence, beyond which was a footpath that led uphill into the forest and the North Downs beyond. The two SAS men - Drew had been sent back to Credenhill with a shopping list for the armourer - walked around the house and recced the surroundings.
'When he finds out where we are,' Will said, almost to himself, as they walked round the house, 'he'll come at us from the woods.'
'How do you know it'll be just him?' Kennedy asked.
'Everything we know about him points to him being a loner. He'll be by himself.'
Kennedy shrugged. If you say so, he seemed to say. 'He'll definitely avoid the road,' he added. 'He'll know it's too easy for us to set up surveillance and he's not to know Five have decided not to give us any support.'
'They've got their reasons,' Will told him.
'I bet they fucking have,' Kennedy replied.
Will stonewalled him. He knew that Pankhurst's decision not to set up a cordon around the house was the right one. If MI5 had a mole feeding intel to Ahmed, that would be a sure-fire way of ensuring he knew their every move. Kennedy and Drew wouldn't see it like that, however.
Kennedy looked up at the walls of the house. 'We can set up motion-sensor alarms to cover the area surrounding the house. That way we'll know as soon as he makes his approach.'
Will looked up and narrowed his eyes. 'He'll be expecting that,' he said, distractedly. 'Means he'll come at us hard and fast. If you were him, how would you enter?'
Kennedy thought for a moment. 'Depends where I thought you were located,' he said. 'On the ground floor, then through the window of whichever room you're in. Tear gas, stun grenades, the works. NV if it's after dark.' He grinned. 'Three to one's not my kind of odds - I wouldn't want to come at you unless I had some pretty heavy weaponry.'
Will nodded. 'And if we were upstairs?'
Again Kennedy thought. 'Avoid the main entrance, obviously. You'd have the advantage of height and could take me out immediately. I guess I'd try to scale up to the roof then swing in through the window again.' He looked sharply at Will. 'But that takes time and with the motion sensors we'll be ready for him.'
Again Will nodded his head, more slowly this time. They started walking to the main door of the house. 'There's no way we can fool our target into thinking that this is anything other than a set-up. If he's as good as I'm told he is, he'll know where we are and how many of us there are. He'll know we're waiting for him.' He chewed absentmindedly on his lower lip. 'We can cover all his possible entry points and try and second-guess him as much as we can, but the one thing we need to prepare for is the one thing we can't predict.'
'What's that?'
Will sniffed. 'Well, I don't know . . . The unexpected, I guess. Ahmed's only chance of success is catching us unawares. We need to make sure he doesn't do that.'
They walked up into the house and continued the recce. Inside it was in reasonable repair, but it had the atmosphere of a place that had been deserted for a long time. There was a stale smell and the high-ceilinged rooms echoed in the way only places that have not been lived in for many years ever do. There were items of furniture here and there, but Will had the impression that they had been left only because nobody had bothered to take them away, not because they were intended to add anything to the general comfort of the house.