by Tom Field
The street was relatively quiet.
Ward looked at Gilligan as they drove.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” Gilligan replied.
“We have to get this right.”
“I know, Chief. So far every call you have made has been right and you and your methods have gotten us here quickly. The combined CIA would probably be two days behind so I’ll follow,” Gilligan said.
“Does that building seem right to you?”
“It looks a bit shitty, but a building is a building, isn’t it?” Gilligan snorted.
Ward rolled his eyes.
“You think he will have many guys in there?” Gilligan asked.
“I think they will have a few, no more than that. Al Holami is a small fish. I doubt he has the manpower, and I think the guys we took out earlier were his main people.”
“So you think we should go in with guns blazing?”
“I think that when we see Fulken, we take him out immediately, either of us. We aren’t going in there to ask questions. We are going in there to stop him from killing innocent people.”
“I’m ready,” Gilligan said, “Apartment number?” he asked.
“Fourteen.”
Gilligan pulled in about thirty yards down the road from the building, there was no crossing the road this time, they walked along the sidewalk and reached the door of the apartment block. Gilligan tried the door and it was open.
He looked at Ward and raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“Think they could be waiting for us?” he asked.
“Maybe, only one way to find out,” Ward said as he stepped through the door.
The hallway smelt musty and there was a worn, patchy red carpet running along the hallway and up the stairs. The walls were off-colour beige and there were four doors in the hallway marked one through to four. The paint was peeling off of them too.
“Looks like a shithole,” Gilligan said.
Ward drew his Glock and attached the silencer.
Without speaking, Gilligan did the same.
They walked slowly up the stairs, Gilligan taking the position of walking backwards behind Ward, about three feet apart so they had every angle covered.
They walked up the first three flights of stairs and every landing looked the same.
Worn, uncared for, and neglected, and the higher they got the more the damp, musty smell crept into their nostrils.
They reached the fourth floor and saw that number fourteen was the second door on the left of the hallway. Ward put his finger to his lips to tell Gilligan he wanted silence and walked up to the apartment door to listen.
He put his ear to the door.
He could hear some muffled voices but they were inaudible and it was impossible to tell how many people were in there. Gilligan looked at Ward and mouthed, “How many?” and Ward shrugged his shoulders.
He put his ear back against the door and leant lightly on it to see if he could hear more clearly and as he did so, the door opened, and Al Holami was standing right in front of him.
Before Al Holami could speak, Ward smashed the butt of his Glock into his face with his right hand and, with his left hand, pushed him back into the room with such force that his feet came off of the ground and he fell back, landing on his head while clutching his nose.
Over Al Holami’s shoulder, Ward could see there were four men sitting on the sofas in an open plan lounge who were now in the process of urgently getting to their feet.
He scanned them and saw immediately that none of them were Fulken and without pausing, he pumped a bullet into each one of them. Put them down and then talk, he thought. Only this time he had been too thorough, and each shot he had fired was a kill shot.
Gilligan came in behind him, knelt down and put his knee on Al Holami’s chest and Ward put his fingers to his lips to indicate he wanted silence.
At the back of the room was a closed door. To the right, two doors that were ajar and on the left, another door closed.
Ward moved to the right and nudged the first door open and then moved back behind the wall for cover.
Nothing happened.
He peered into the room and it was empty apart from a bed and a tatty old sofa. He bent down and checked under the bed, nothing.
He came out of the room and moved to the next door on the right.
He nudged the door again and took cover.
Nothing.
He peered in. Inside there was nothing. It was completely empty.
He came back out into the living area, stepped over two of the guys he had shot dead and moved to the closed door on the left.
He turned the handle slowly and pushed the door wide open. He could see a bath in one corner and a mirror on the wall. He craned his neck so he could use the mirror to see behind the door and all he could see was a toilet and a sink.
He stepped in and confirmed to himself that the room was empty. He came out of the bathroom and looked at the door on the far side of the room that was closed.
He looked at Gilligan, still with his knee on Al Holami’s chest.
Al Holami’s eyes were following Ward and when he started moving towards the door, his eyes started to show agitation and worry.
He looked scared.
Ward walked up to the door and stood to the right hand side of it.
He looked at Gilligan and nodded towards the door.
Gilligan aimed his gun.
Ward leant on the handle and pushed the door wide open then moved back behind the wall.
No movement.
Nothing.
Gilligan had his gun pointed at the doorway and shrugged in Wards Direction.
Ward put his head around the side and then pulled back to the cover of the wall again. The glimpse he had taken showed him the room had a lot of stuff in it, but no one was in there. He stepped cautiously through the doorway and scanned the room. The room had clothes, two laptops, an unmade bed and a big leather bag at the foot of the bed.
But there was no Asif Fulken.
He stepped into the room and picked up the bag. There were passports in there, cash and a gun.
He walked out of the room.
“He’s not here,” he said to Gilligan.
“Where is he?” Gilligan asked Al Holami.
“Who?” Al Holami asked.
Gilligan yanked him to his feet,
“Where is he?” he asked again.
“Who are you looking for?”
Ward walked over to them both and studied Al Holami’s face. He was a coward, he could see that.
“I will ask you once. If you don’t tell me, I will kill you,” he said.
“I don’t know. He came here earlier but he went away. I don’t know where he has gone.”
“Do you know where he has the bomb?”
“No, I know nothing about that.”
Ward could see he was lying.
“You know nothing about the bomb or nothing about where it is?”
“I know he said something is going to happen but I don’t know what or where,” Al Holami said with the genuine fear and anxiety that only a man telling the truth could show.
“There is no one left, you know that?”
Al Holami looked confused, he didn’t understand.
“Yassin, Saleem, Ayad. They are all dead. I have killed them all. He has no one else to turn to.”
Al Holami looked mortified at this news. He was out of his depth; he was just playing at being important.
“So,” Ward continued, “What have you got to give to me that will stop me killing you?” he asked calmly.
“I have a number for him.”
“Where?”
“In my cell phone, over there on the table,” he said, pointing to a phone on the wooden coffee table, “It is under ‘Brother Asif,’” he added.
Gilligan picked up the phone. He touched the screen and a numerical passcode request came up. He threw the phone at Ward who caught it.
“What’s the code?” he asked.
Al Holami looked even more frightened than he had earlier.
Ward raised his Glock to Al Holami’s head.
“What’s the code?” Ward asked, looking him right in the eyes.
“Zero, nine, one, one,” Al Holami replied.
Ward entered the number ‘0-9-1-1’. The screen opened up. He clicked on his contact book and found ‘Brother Asif’.
“Is this the number?”
Al Holami looked at the phone and said, “Yes.”
Ward shot him in the centre of his forehead and Al Holami fell to the floor in a crumpled pile.
“Get the clean-up crew here. It will be their last job. We have obliterated his support network now,” he said, “Then get them to get these laptops and the bag over to Nicole-Louise and Tackler immediately; I want to know what we can find.”
“Will do,” Gilligan replied.
“And get round the clock surveillance on this place in case he comes back. It’s unlikely but let’s cover all the angles,” he instructed.
Gilligan got straight onto his phone.
“Meet me downstairs as soon as you are done. We have one more visit to make,” he said as he walked out of the apartment deep in his own thoughts.
He reached the street and exhaled. They had made a lot of progress and now Fulken was alone and that would make his mission a hundred times harder to complete. He was feeling slightly irritated though, that he had come so close to finding him.
He strolled back to the car to wait for Gilligan.
He took out Al Holami’s phone and dialled the number for Fulken. There was a message saying it was not possible to connect the call and so he hung up.
He felt frustrated.
His frustration would have been compounded even more if he had turned around and looked fifty yards up the street.
Asif Fulken had turned into West 8th Street and saw a man walking out of Al Holami’s building.
This man had an Aura about him that screamed ‘Danger’ to him.
He watched the man breathe in deeply and then look up to the sky. He watched as he pulled a phone out of his jacket pocket, put it to his ear and then put it back in his pocket. There was something about the man that Fulken thought was familiar.
Had their path’s crossed?
Had he been part of the CIA team that initially brought him to America?
There was something familiar, he just didn’t know what.
He kept himself against a shop front, the man’s view of him obscured by the trees while he waited to see what would happen next. He pulled out his cell phone, took out the battery and threw it down a drain.
A few moments later a white van pulled up and three men got out in black overalls.
He now knew what had happened.
He turned and walked away down Greenwich Avenue and got lost in the evening crowds.
TWENTY THREE
They arrived at the USBC News offices at twenty past eight so they had ten minutes to spare. Considering the events of the day so far, their punctuality had been impressive throughout.
The offices were almost directly opposite the NBC Experience Store on 6th Avenue. Nice touch, Ward thought to himself, letting the competition know that they were moving closer. USBC News was an expansion of UKBC News and Lord Ashurst-Stevens was now probably the most influential media man on both sides of the Atlantic.
He had slowly been buying up smaller networks and newspapers over the years and before anyone knew it; he had branched into satellite TV, and profits had soared by an unprecedented amount.
His TV companies held the rights to show live NFL games in the States and Soccer in the UK, and these rights had then been sold on to the rest of the world.
This has made the Ashurst-Stevens group of companies crucial to politicians and celebrities alike. If he decided to help them achieve their goals, they would, and on the flip side, he could break anyone just as easily.
Many governments had been elected on the wave of the media support that he decided was most beneficial to his own empire building.
This was now the way of the world, Ward thought to himself, morals, democracy and decency had lost their values a long time ago, he didn’t like Ashurst-Stevens.
When they had briefly met back in London, he had the feeling that Ashurst-Stevens thought he was untouchable. He guessed that he was used to being able to make a phone call and get someone, particularly someone asking awkward questions, advised not to ask them again.
The world was in desperate need of change.
The offices had three floors with glass fronts, and the remaining twenty or so floors grew out from the top of the glass like a giant stem from a garden pot.
Not the kind of building that Ward liked. It had no character, not too dissimilar to the majority of the people who worked in there, he thought to himself.
They parked the car and Gilligan said,
“What’s this Walker guy like?”
“I don’t like him.”
“Why?” Gilligan asked.
“See for yourself,” he replied.
They walked into the building and were faced by a grand, semi-circle of a reception desk, which looked like it belonged on the Titanic.
There was a security guard in his sixties talking to a pretty, blonde woman in her late twenties. They approached the desk with Ward leading the way.
“We have an eight thirty appointment with Martin Walker,” he said.
“Your name, Sir?” she asked.
“Tell him his friend from London is here.”
“The appointment has to be by name,” she replied apologetically.
“Gilligan,” Ward said.
“That’s not the name I have sir.”
Ward had to pause for a moment and think back to what Lawson had called him in London,
“Chennell.”
“That’s it,” she picked up the phone and dialled a number,
“Mr Walker’s eight thirty appointment has arrived,” she said, followed by an “OK.”
“One of his staff is on his way down to collect you,” she said and smiled.
They both moved back from the desk a few feet and looked towards the elevator.
“This guy is too important to come and meet you on his own?” Gilligan asked.
“He wasn’t last time.”
The elevator doors opened and a guy in his early forties stepped out. He was tall and muscular with a head of cropped hair that was just on the verge of turning from brown to grey. Ward could see he was carrying a gun by the fall of his black suit jacket.
He was sizing Ward and Gilligan up, not with the eye of a personal bodyguard, but with the expertise of someone well trained, with narrowed eyes, calculating his chances, assessing the opposition.
He was around six feet three and had that wiry frame that told Ward that if you put him down in a fist fight, he would get straight back up. He was moving briskly and directly towards them. He was starting to extend his right hand as he got about six feet away. He was starting to smile. He was not, Ward thought to himself, a member of Walker’s staff.
“Hello gentlemen,” he said.
His voice carried a heavy droll to it, from the Deep South.
“Mr Walker is just finishing a briefing and will be with you shortly. Please follow me up to his offices,” he said, appearing oblivious to the fact that both Ward and Gilligan ignored his offer of a handshake, before turning and heading back to the elevator.
They stepped into the elevator and the guy pushed the button with number sixteen on.
Ward stood opposite the guy, looking at him. None of them spoke.
That alone told all three of them what they needed to know. There was an acceptance between them, an unspoken agreement.
They all knew the other was content not to speak and not be unnerved by the situation, which meant that all three guys in the lift were very dangerous indeed. No need for names or introductions. They all knew.<
br />
The elevator stopped on the 16th floor and they got out.
“Follow me please,” the guy said.
They walked along a corridor that was lined with full length glass acting as office walls.
There were a large number of people on their feet moving around urgently, and it had the same manic feel to it that he had noticed in the London offices.
At the end of the hallway was a partitioned wall, painted magnolia, with a number of certificates in frames hanging proudly, showing the awards that USBC News had received in its young life.
In the middle of the wall was a large, dark oak door with a gold handle.
The guy walked up to the door and knocked. A muffled “Enter,” came from inside, and he opened the door and held it open for Ward and Gilligan to walk into the room.
The guy closed the door and crossed his arms, so that his hands were covering his groin.
There was a big table which took up eighty per cent of the room which Ward quickly established had twenty seats around it, nine on each side and one at either end.
At the far end of the table, Martin Walker sat on the left hand side on his own. On the opposite side, three guys all over sixty sat with lots of paper spread out in front of them.
The lawyers were in town.
At the head of the table sat someone who Ward was surprised to see.
“We meet again,” Lord Ashurst-Stevens said.
Ward looked at the four men and said,
“Is there any particular reason why you are all here?”
“Just wrapping up some business, which is none of yours,” One of the lawyers replied, shuffling bits of paper together as he said it.
“Have you made any progress in the pursuit of the bomber?” Lord Ashurst-Stevens asked, looking at Ward, a question that he chose to ignore.
“And you are?” Ashurst-Stevens said looking at Gilligan
“Mr Haggler,” he replied, completely serious.
“Pleased to meet you,” Ashurst-Stevens said as he stood up from the table and the four other men stood up a second after him.