Firefight

by Chris Ryan

  Priestley nodded, slowly. Was Jackson telling the truth? The CIA man had been trained to tell when someone was lying and he could see none of the telltale signifiers. But years in the job had taught Priestley to make suspicion his default position. He still hadn't forgotten about the charade in Trafalgar Square and although Jackson had said nothing to suggest he knew about Firefight, he had equally said nothing to suggest he didn't.

  'Why are you here, Will?' he asked, plainly. 'Why are you reporting all this to me and not to Pankhurst? He's your handler.'

  'I don't have a handler,' Jackson replied with a sudden burst of anger. 'I left the Regiment two years ago and to my knowledge I never signed up again. Pankhurst's been using me, manipulating me for his own ends. Fuck it, you both have. But all I want to do is kill Faisal Ahmed. Pankhurst's leads have all dried up, so it seems to me that you and I can help each other.'

  Priestley blinked. 'I'm not sure I quite follow you, Will.'

  'Ahmed told me straight that he's got a bullet with your name on it. Seems to me that if I want to get to him, all I have to do is hang around you.'

  'Forgive me, Will, but I don't quite see what I get out of it.'

  'A bodyguard,' Jackson replied. 'Twenty-four seven.'

  Priestley smiled, but he was aware of it being a rather sickly smile - the sort of smile that only a man talking about his own potential assassination could give. 'That's very kind of you, Will,' he said. 'But my position is such that if I want a bodyguard, I really only have to say the word.'

  Jackson shrugged. 'That's up to you,' he said. He stood up and now it was his turn to look through the window. He paused. 'When he comes for you,' he said, his voice subdued, 'it won't be in a dark alleyway like in the movies. It'll be when you least expect it. In a crowd, in a restaurant, when you're lying in bed - sometime when you feel safe.' He turned back to the CIA man. 'I'm the only person you can call on who's seen Ahmed in the last five years. I've looked into his eyes. I'll recognise him in an instant. Have me by your side and you might even live to see Christmas.'

  Priestley fell into a terrified silence. There really wasn't much he could say to that.

  'And there's one other thing,' Jackson added. 'Faisal Ahmed really wants you dead. I don't know why and I don't reckon I'll ever find out. But this terrorist attack of yours, I think it's just a red herring.'

  Priestley did his best to remain expressionless.

  'But you know what? I don't care. You and Pankhurst can play your little games as much as you like. Ahmed killed my family and I want him dead. I want him dead even more than he wants you dead. If you think that's a resource you can just ignore, then fine. But it'll be your funeral, sir, so you'd better start planning it.'

  Jackson's stark warning seemed to ring in the air and sent a chill all the way through Priestley's body. Perhaps this SAS man whom MI5 seemed to trust so implicitly was right. Perhaps there was something to be said for going along with his proposal.

  At least for now.

  The guy really wanted Ahmed's head on a plate, that much was beyond doubt. Why not let him do what he wanted? After all, once Ahmed was dead, Priestley could deal with Will Jackson more permanently.

  He nodded his head. 'All right, Will,' he said gravely. 'You've got yourself a deal.'

  *

  Latifa Ahmed watched her brother as he slept.

  The flat in which they were staying - fifteen floors up a vast concrete tower block on a council estate fifty miles out of London - was more like a fortress than a home. Huge bolts sealed the front entrance closed and there was weaponry and ammunition everywhere. This was not a room designed for comfort. Latifa knew that Faisal had places like this dotted all over the country. When they had arrived, however, she hadn't been able to stop herself from sounding like her mother, dead these thirty years, and asking him how he could call such a place home.

  Faisal's answer had been simple. 'I would rather be alive in a prison than dead in a home.'

  He lay now on a thin mattress on the floor, his ever-present gun by his side. It seemed to her that she had never seen Faisal without his weapon, not since he was a child of ten. She had never actually witnessed him killing anybody, though, not until he rescued her a couple of nights previously. He had shot those two men so unthinkingly, showing such a lack of remorse, that she could not help looking at him differently now. It had been all she could do, slung over his shoulder as they escaped that house, to beg him not to kill Will Jackson, the man who - despite everything - had done so much for her. Faisal hadn't been pleased with the idea, but she felt she had at least done something to stop the bloodshed.

  He had been such an idealistic little boy; but now, looking at his chest rising and falling and at the surroundings in which they found themselves, she could not help wondering what it was he was fighting for. Maybe the fight itself was everything.

  Faisal's eyes flickered open and his hand moved automatically to his weapon as he snapped himself into awareness. He smiled at Latifa when he realised she was there; but she found herself unable to return that smile.

  'You have been looking at me in that way ever since we got here,' Faisal said in quiet Pashto as he stood up and walked to the sink to splash cold water on his face.

  'I keep thinking of the men you shot, Faisal,' she replied. 'Does it not bother you?'

  He sighed. 'I have already told you, Latifa,' he said, impatiently. 'It was them or me. Would you have preferred to see me lying dead on the floor?'

  'Of course not,' she murmured.

  'They were soldiers, Latifa. Soldiers die. They knew that when they came after me.'

  Latifa tried to bite her tongue. She knew she ought not to ask the question that was on her lips, but suddenly she couldn't help herself. 'And what of the little girl, Faisal? Will Jackson's little girl. Was she a soldier too?'

  Faisal suddenly slammed his fist on the wall. 'I have explained that to you,' he shouted. 'Do not ask me about it again.'

  And then Latifa was on her feet, hobbling towards her brother, who had menace in his eyes. His breath was shaking. 'Do not try to scare me like you scare them, Faisal,' she whispered. 'I am your sister. Have you forgotten what I have undergone to keep you safe?'

  He lowered his eyes.

  'When that man told me what you did to his family, I did not believe him. I did not want to believe him. I did not think you could do such a thing. But you have changed, Faisal. You have turned into something you never meant to be.'

  'It was not supposed to happen,' he told her. 'It was an accident.'

  'An accident? How can you say that? It was a little girl and her mother. How can you carry on with this way of life with such an accident weighing on your shoulders? Can you not see that it was only a matter of time before such a thing happened? That it will happen again?'

  Faisal looked defiantly at her; but for all his fierceness she saw nothing more than the little boy she had once known. She stretched out her arms and cupped his face in her hands.

  'Can you not see,' she whispered, 'that this will only end one way? The Taliban nearly killed you as they nearly killed me. We have both been given a second chance at life, Faisal. We must not squander it. What will I do if you are killed and I have no one else left in the whole world?'

  Brother and sister looked deep into each other's eyes, but Faisal could not weather that stare for long. He moved her hands away from his face. 'You don't understand,' he said. 'For years I did the Americans' bidding. For years, Latifa. I was one of them. I believed I was fighting for the right side. Even when they asked me to start making phoney terrorist attacks against the British, I believed it was the right thing to do.' He turned back to look at her again. 'Believe me, Latifa. When that woman and child died, no one was more anguished than me. But then they asked me to start killing innocent civilians and I knew it was wrong.'

  His brow was furrowed now and his features seemed strangely tortured. 'Can you not think what it must have been like, to realise that the people you have served al
l your life are not what you thought they were? Can you not understand how difficult it was to deny them? And can you not see the depth of their betrayal? After all I had risked for them, to leave me to the vultures.' Faisal's nostrils flared and he looked away from his sister.

  'We can leave here,' Latifa whispered. 'Leave this country. Hide away. We don't need to have anything more to do with these people, Faisal. You cannot fight the might of the Americans, so why risk your life doing it?'

  'Because I'm a soldier. All my life I have fought for someone. But now, I fight for myself.' His eyes flashed. 'Donald Priestley will pay for what he did to me, Latifa. I will not have it any other way.'

  His words seemed to puncture Latifa's soul. 'And after him,' she asked. 'What then? Where will it end, Faisal? When will it end, all this killing? What about Will Jackson? He is a good man, but I have seen the hate in his eyes when he speaks your name.'

  Faisal frowned. 'I am grateful to Will Jackson for what he did for you, Latifa, and I spared his life at your request. But I will not do so again. I do not blame him for wanting me dead - in his position I would want the same. But if he is foolish enough to come searching for me, he knows the stakes. He knows I will not hesitate to kill him.'

  Latifa closed her eyes. It was impossible for her to express to her brother the deep sadness she felt at hearing his words; impossible for her to relay the dreadful sense of foreboding that seemed to permeate to her very core.

  'But what,' she asked, her voice hesitant, 'if he kills you first?'

  As she spoke, Faisal had his back to her. But when he heard those words, he turned his head and glanced over his shoulder. The look he gave her almost stopped Latifa's heart. In that instant, perhaps for the first time ever, she saw not the little boy she had taken care of all those years ago in a small village in Afghanistan; she saw not even the idealistic young teenager who spent his days picking off hated Russian soldiers with his well maintained AK-47; nor even the CIA-trained agent who had managed to infiltrate the highest levels of al-Qaeda for so many years.

  She saw none of these things. Instead, standing before her, she seemed to see a different person. The contours of his shoulder muscles were pronounced and sinewy; his jaw was set; his lips unsmiling. But it was his eyes that shocked her most of all. They were flat. Emotionless. Murderous. The cold, unfeeling eyes of a killer.

  And for the first time in her life, Latifa Ahmed felt afraid of her brother.

  He did not answer her question, but that look told Latifa everything she needed to know. She bowed her head and stared out of the window while Faisal bent over, picked up his weapon and started taking it to bits, preparing to clean it.

  Preparing to use it. And soon.

  EIGHTEEN

  CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia, USA.

  Bradley Heller, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Tyler Moore, Director of National Intelligence, sat on opposite sides of a large mahogany desk. The DCIA's office was richly appointed, with expensive art on the walls, comfortable furniture and floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over a neatly kept lawn that nobody other than the carefully vetted groundsmen ever walked upon. It was bright, clear and cold outside; inside it was invitingly warm. Between them was a steaming pot of coffee that Heller's PA had just brought in before leaving them to their discussions.

  Despite the comfortable surroundings, however, the DCIA and the DNI were troubled.

  'I want to just keep you in the loop about the situation in London,' Heller told his colleague. Bradley Heller was a tall man in his mid-sixties with thinning grey hair and a deeply lined face. Tyler Moore was younger by several years, but he still seemed older than his actual age.

  'Have they located Ahmed?'

  Heller shook his head. 'And they've lost the sister.'

  Moore gave him a look as if to say, These goddamn British.

  'I know,' Heller replied. 'I know. One of their guys caught up with him, but Ahmed got away.' He handed Moore a thin file across the desk.

  Moore opened it. 'Will Jackson,' he murmured, before starting to read. It took him four or five minutes to absorb everything in the file. 'Quite a resumé,' he noted as he finished.

  'It seems he and Faisal Ahmed had a conversation before Jackson let him get away.'

  Moore's eyes narrowed. 'A conversation? Where did they meet, a gentlemen's club?'

  'Hardly that,' Heller murmured.

  'You think this Will Jackson knows? About Firefight, I mean?'

  Heller took a sip of his coffee. 'Impossible to say,' he replied, his voice measured. 'We've got no direct evidence to suggest that Ahmed told him anything;but we'd be foolish to assume that Jackson's in the dark.'

  A silence fell between the two of them as they both considered the implications of what Heller had just said.

  'Of course,' the DCIA continued after a moment, 'we can make a reasonable assumption that Ahmed's sister is in the know. And now this Will Jackson. Firefight relies on its secrecy, but we suddenly seem to be springing leaks.'

  Moore sniffed. 'Leaks can be plugged.'

  'Of course,' Heller replied. 'But you have to find them first. We've no idea where the sister is at the moment.'

  'What about Jackson?'

  Heller inclined his head. 'Jackson's a bit easier.' He handed Moore an A4-sized photograph. 'You know Don Priestley, of course.'

  Moore nodded, recognising Priestley's features in the photo.

  'The man just behind him,' Heller continued, 'is Jackson. He claims Ahmed is planning a hit on Priestley.'

  Moore looked dubious. 'Why would Ahmed admit that to Jackson?'

  'My thought exactly. But Priestley seems to think Jackson's telling the truth.' He sipped at his drink once more. 'I know Don very well,' he said. 'His instincts are good and right now he's running scared. He called me personally yesterday, requesting a transfer back to Langley.'

  'Will you be granting it?'

  'No,' Heller said, firmly.

  'But do you think Ahmed is really—?'

  'I think it's possible, yes.'

  'Then we should—'

  'Please, Tyler,' Heller held up a hand. 'Hear me out. Jackson has offered to bodyguard Priestley in the hope of getting a crack at Ahmed. Hardly regulation, I know, but in the circumstances it's quite neat. At the very least having Priestley on the ground gives us a chance of drawing Ahmed out into the open. And it keeps Jackson close. I've instructed Priestley to go along with Jackson. That way we can eliminate him once he's served his purpose.'

  Moore raised an eyebrow.

  'Look at the options,' Heller continued. 'If Jackson kills Ahmed, our problem goes away. If Ahmed kills Jackson, then at least one of our potential leaks has been plugged. And if his target is Priestley, he's going to want to take out Jackson first, wouldn't you say?'

  'I guess so,' Moore replied. 'But what if he doesn't? What if he gets Priestley first? He's an American, Bradley. He's one of us.'

  Heller nodded. 'I know,' he said, quietly. 'I don't like it any more than you do. But we can't get sentimental about this. If word of Firefight leaks we'll be facing an international crisis. I don't think the world needs the US and the British at each other's throats just now, do you?'

  Moore took a deep breath. 'Of course not.'

  'And anyway,' Heller continued. 'If Jackson gets through this, we know where he is. It won't take long for us to find out if he knows about Firefight. And if he does, well then - we'll be in a position to deal with it, won't we?'