by Matt Rogers
At the last second, Slater scrambled out of the way, sensing a panicked burst of gunfire was imminent.
He was right.
Abu came down hard enough on the heads of al-Mansur and the tribesman to cause massive neurological damage to whoever took the brunt of the impact. The three men sprawled to the floor, limbs tangling and heads clattering off the marble. Al-Mansur’s finger tensed around the trigger of his pistol and a shot blasted through the space Slater had occupied a moment previously.
Slater regained control of his course, getting his feet underneath him, and hurled himself at the trio — all three of whom were regaining their senses.
In one practiced motion, he soccer-kicked the tribesman’s AK-47 out of harm’s way. If he had missed, he would have wound up on his rear, vulnerable and exposed to a burst of unprotected gunfire.
Thankfully, the toe of his boot slammed home against the weapon’s stock and it skittered away across the marble.
Slater exploded into action.
He crushed a fist into the tribesman’s face with enough force to knock the man unconscious. For good measure, he thundered an extra shot into the guy’s unprotected liver, adding insult to injury and giving him something to occupy his attention when he came to.
In the mad scramble, he rolled over on his back and came down on top of al-Mansur, crushing the man under his deadweight. The Brigadier-General squirmed for a decent grip on the IWI Jericho in his hand, but Slater smashed the gun away with a single strike.
He noted the proximity of their faces — only half a foot apart — and dropped his forehead into the bridge of al-Mansur’s nose.
The man screamed, bucked, and rolled instinctively onto his back to turn his face away from any subsequent blows.
Just as they all do.
Slater opted not to choke the life out of the man — or even the consciousness. He left al-Mansur’s bodily functions intact, rolling off the body as soon as he sensed the man give up.
It took him a moment to process the stillness in the air.
In the space of three minutes, he had stormed a heavily-fortified compound and come away with nothing but a grazing bullet wound.
Sometimes, he surprised himself…
39
From across the room, Abu whimpered. The man had backed himself away from the conflict, resting against the banister running the length of the staircase. He had broken out in a cold sweat, and it took Slater a moment to realise why.
Abu’s left ankle had twisted unnaturally, sticking out at an odd angle in grotesque fashion. On top of that, the man clutched his right shoulder in apparent agony, wincing as he rode out several waves of crippling shock.
He had landed hard.
Slater wasn’t surprised that the fall had beat him half to death.
‘What the fuck were you thinking?’ Slater muttered, assessing the state of the computer technician.
‘I wasn’t,’ Abu said. ‘But I thought I’d try something that they wouldn’t see coming.’
‘You’ve likely torn your shoulder and broken your ankle. You’re not going anywhere fast.’
‘You might be dead if I did nothing.’
Slater nodded. ‘Thank you.’
‘What now?’ Abu said, staring around the lobby at the smattering of corpses scattered across the room. ‘What the hell have we got ourselves into?’
Slater exhaled, letting the cocktail of pulse-pounding neurotransmitters simmer down, controlling his breathing. His thoughts were muddied and scrambled. He couldn’t focus on a single concept for more than a few seconds, instinctively reeling to something else.
Always moving.
Truth was — he didn’t know.
‘Our timeframe’s far shorter than I thought it would be,’ Slater said, vocalising everything running through his mind in an attempt to organise his thoughts. ‘We’ve only got hours before something happens in London. There’s three bomblets containing the Marburg virus in the hands of an unknown third party over there. I don’t know if the package was stopped in transit, or if the guy responsible for setting it off has backed out. There’s no way to know any of that.’
He turned his attention to al-Mansur, still cowering on the floor between them.
‘But he does,’ Slater said.
Things became clearer. Al-Mansur was the central node of this whole ordeal, the single man in charge of everything. It was more than likely that he had the capacity to call off the operation.
The Brigadier-General served as Slater’s only link to the puzzle. It was all he had to work with.
I’ll make it work.
He heaved al-Mansur up, charged with nervous energy, and hauled the man into a seated position on the marble floor. The confident demeanour had vanished, wiped out of al-Mansur as he came to the realisation that there was no more help on the way.
Slater had decimated the man’s entire security detail.
Twice.
‘Let’s try this again,’ Slater muttered.
Abu began to mirror the sentence in Arabic, but Slater held up a hand, abruptly cutting him off.
‘The bastard speaks English,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ Abu said.
Al-Mansur made eye contact with Slater for the first time since he’d re-entered the complex. Slater hesitated as he studied the man’s gaze — it had changed significantly since his last visit. There was raw terror behind the eyes, something that couldn’t easily be faked.
The next sentence that Slater was set to utter caught in his throat. He found himself thrown off by al-Mansur’s panic, scrambling for words, breathing heavily.
Above everything else, the thought struck him that perhaps this man wasn’t as all-powerful and all-knowing as he originally anticipated.
Despite his unease, he composed himself. He reached down and snatched up a handful of al-Mansur’s shirt collar.
‘You know that I won’t stop,’ he said, ‘until you call this off.’
He studied the man’s expression — besides the fear, there was intense confusion. Al-Mansur spent a long, drawn-out beat taking in what Slater had said. When he realised what the words meant, he shrugged, staring vacantly into the distance.
‘He’s concussed,’ Abu muttered.
Slater nodded understandingly. All of Abu’s weight had come down on top of the Brigadier-General’s skull. Although he wasn’t unconscious, his senses were rattled.
Slater realised he could use it to his own advantage.
Concussed individuals were highly suggestible.
Slater shook the man by the collar hard enough to cause a moan of despair — the action aggravated the pounding headache that had no doubt sprung to life behind al-Mansur’s temple. He slumped forward, dejected.
Defeated.
‘You’re going to call your man in London and tell him to stand down,’ Slater said. ‘Understand? Then I might let you live.’
Al-Mansur said nothing.
He simply stared over Slater’s shoulder, zoned out.
Slater yanked the man to his feet and dragged him through into the main office. The bank of digital screens were still tuned into CCTV feeds of central London — it was late afternoon in the U.K. and the streets were congesting with office workers getting off early. Slater kept his gaze fixed on the screens for an ominous moment before tearing it away to focus on al-Mansur.
He dumped the Brigadier-General down in one of the swivel chairs, oddly mirroring the last time he’d entered the mansion.
This time, there was no help on the way.
That was clear through al-Mansur’s body language.
The confidence was gone.
‘You’re going to call your man in London,’ Slater repeated. ‘And tell him to stand down.’
He wouldn’t say it a third time.
The AK-15 in his right hand hung by his side, poised. He was ready to use it. A single round through the top of the kneecap caused more pain than anyone could possibly imagine.
He would blow both al-Mans
ur’s joints to shards, and then get to work on the rest of him.
Whatever it takes.
The Brigadier-General maintained his strange vow of silence, his vacant stare unfazed by the threats.
Slater clenched his teeth as desperation set in. He jammed the barrel of the AK-15 against al-Mansur’s trouser leg. ‘Did you hear me?’
‘I heard you.’
The three syllables came out pathetically, as if every last option in the world had been exhausted.
Which they had.
Slater could taste the defeat in the air.
‘And?’ he said, leaning closer to al-Mansur, steadily applying more pressure with the AK-15, just a couple of ounces of resistance away from blowing the man’s kneecap to pieces.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ al-Mansur said, refusing to take his eyes off the empty space over Slater’s shoulder.
‘What?’
‘It’s not my man in London. It never was.’
40
‘Bullshit,’ Slater hissed, leaning all his weight on the barrel of the AK-15.
The automatic rifle dug into the top of al-Mansur’s kneecap, making him squirm. He rode out the pain without protest, refusing to change his demeanour.
‘The cameras,’ Slater said. ‘You really think you’ll convince me you have nothing to do with it? Not for a second.’
‘Of course I have something to do with it,’ al-Mansur said. ‘I have everything to do with it. But it’s not my man in London.’
‘You’d better get talking before I put a bullet through your head.’
‘Do it,’ al-Mansur said. ‘I have nothing left to live for.’
‘What?’
‘I’m not going to explain myself to you,’ al-Mansur said. ‘But my life is over already. No matter what happens from this point. The operation’s been compromised. That’s on me.’
‘You co-operate with me and I’ll give you a chance to get out of here alive,’ Slater said. ‘It’s not a great option, but it’s the only one you’ve got.’
Al-Mansur smiled grimly. ‘You think I care about myself? Please…’
‘I won’t keep this game up much longer,’ Slater said. ‘Spit it out or you’re guaranteed to die. You never know — maybe I can help you.’
Al-Mansur scowled and spat on the ground beside Slater. ‘You cannot do a thing. You will not do a thing.’
Slater tensed his finger against the AK-15’s trigger. ‘Talk.’
‘Sayyid has my daughter,’ al-Mansur said, blurting it out before he could stop himself. ‘I have been forced to co-operate.’
Slater hesitated, rapidly putting the pieces together. Behind him, he sensed Abu recoil, realising all at once what was going on. Slater turned to see the man leaning against the doorway, resting on one leg, his face contorted in pain but paling as new realisations dawned.
‘The tribesman?’ Slater said, turning back to al-Mansur.
‘The leader,’ Abu whispered from behind. ‘You ran into him in the mountains above Qasam. I told you this man does not associate himself with those savages.’
‘You think I am willingly working with the tribes?’ al-Mansur said. ‘You do not know enough about me. I despise them.’
‘I said as much yesterday,’ Abu said.
‘It could be a ruse,’ Slater said.
‘What business do you think I have in London?’ al-Mansur said. ‘You think I am bothered by what’s going on halfway across the world? I care about my child. I care about keeping her alive by any means necessary. That’s what bothers me.’
‘Why?’ Slater said, keeping his grip tight on the AK-15, ensuring al-Mansur didn’t budge an inch. ‘Why the fuck is any of this happening? When did it begin?’
‘Months ago. Something like this does not unfold quickly. It has been brewing in Sayyid’s mind for years. Decades, even.’
‘There’s considerable risks involved,’ Slater said. ‘I don’t see the reason for any of this.’
‘I see,’ al-Mansur said. ‘Trust me, I see. Sayyid has ranted and raved to me for hours on end about why he is doing this.’
‘Care to explain?’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘I need to know,’ Slater said. ‘I need to know if I can stop it.’
‘It is not a pleasant tale.’
‘My life doesn’t revolve around pleasant tales. Tell me.’
‘What do you know about the history of Yemen?’
‘Very little,’ Slater admitted.
‘Sayyid’s ancestors have led the northern highland tribes for generations. His father was leader when the conflict with the British reached its apex, in the 1960s. Sayyid was a young boy at the time. For years the northern tribes had fantasised about their independence, so it was only natural that Sayyid’s father took up arms against the British forces in Yemen at the first opportunity. It came in the form of the National Liberation Front, an organisation that encouraged violence against the British. I won’t get into the finer details — we have a long and complicated history.
‘As fate would have it, the conflict heightened. Sayyid’s father and his fellow tribesman carried out many attacks on British forces down in Aden. They favoured the use of hand grenades. Their strikes were vicious and unrelenting. It took a certain Lieutenant-Colonel to bring about a crackdown on the tribes.’
‘Mad Mitch?’ Abu said, interrupting.
Al-Mansur nodded. ‘You have heard of him.’
Slater wheeled around, studying Abu’s expression. ‘Who is he?’
‘A well-known figure around these parts,’ al-Mansur said. ‘A Lieutenant Colonel in the British army, stationed in Yemen in the late 1960s. He didn’t cause much damage himself, but the men under his command were brutal. Anonymous, nameless troops. They hit back at the tribes harder than anyone thought possible, trying to re-impose order.’
‘Understandable,’ Slater said, grimly anticipating what would come next.
‘I’m afraid a collection of his men took it too far when Sayyid was just ten years old.’
‘They were carrying out grenade attacks on British troops…’ Slater said.
‘I am not saying anything is justified,’ al-Mansur said, shrugging. ‘I’m merely explaining what happened. A collection of British troops stormed into Sayyid’s encampment in the dead of night. They raped his mother over and over again, and beheaded her in front of her ten-year-old child. They forced her father to watch. A couple of them raped him, too. Then they sat Sayyid down, inches away from his own father, and slit the man’s throat. Sayyid still tells me of the memories he has. His father’s blood running all over him. And then they left Sayyid to process those events for the rest of his life. They left him alive. To stew. And plot. And retaliate.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Slater said, wincing involuntarily.
‘Now you see why he might hold a grudge.’
‘It’s been fifty years,’ Slater said. ‘He didn’t care to try something sooner?’
Al-Mansur shrugged. ‘It’s half that. The other half is to send a message.’
‘To who?’
‘Who do you think?’
‘What does he have against the Brits — besides the obvious?’
‘He is displeased with many things,’ al-Mansur said. ‘We all are. Your friend here can confirm that.’
Slater turned to Abu, who shrugged and nodded accordingly.
‘I must say, none of us are willing to take a response to this level,’ al-Mansur said. ‘But there is significant dissatisfaction with what the British are doing. They are funding a Saudi invasion of our land — it has killed thousands. They supply the Saudis with weaponry — high-tech weaponry — which they use on our people at will. Billions of dollars of weapons. All funded by the British. Sayyid intends to send a stark message. Look what happens when your politicians go off the rails. Look what it does to your people. There are consequences for your actions.’
‘And you think this kind of reaction is justified? Rivers of blood in the streets? T
he deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people?’
‘I don’t recall ever mentioning what I thought about it,’ al-Mansur said. ‘Truth is, it does not matter. Sayyid came to me. With my daughter’s head on the chopping block. I had no choice but to comply.’
‘You’d cause suffering like nothing anyone’s ever seen before to protect her?’
‘Of course,’ al-Mansur said, his gaze icy.
‘Hundreds of thousands of lives…’
‘Do you have children?’
‘No.’
‘Then you cannot judge me on what I should or should not do when my only child is at risk of being raped, mutilated and murdered. You may despise me for it, but I would end the world to see her live another day.’
‘How do I know you’re telling the truth?’
‘It is the truth,’ al-Mansur said, and Slater could see the raw emotion behind his eyes, the kind of wordless pain that couldn’t be easily masked. The kind of pain that came from spending months worrying over whether your child was suffering or not. ‘I do not care if you don’t believe me. It doesn’t affect me either way.’
‘How long have they had her?’
‘Too long.’
‘Do you know if she’s still alive?’
‘She was yesterday,’ al-Mansur said, his tone suddenly wracked with grief. ‘But it’s just a waiting game. Sayyid is a savage. He will cast me aside as soon as he is done with me. My daughter too. I just hope it is painless for her.’
‘So you’re powerless to stop this?’
Al-Mansur shrugged. ‘Sayyid controls everything. But I would not lie to you. Even if I had the choice to stop this, I would not. For a number of reasons.’
Slater nodded. ‘I thought as much.’
‘Even if they didn’t have your daughter?’ Abu said.
Al-Mansur looked past Slater to make eye contact with the computer technician for the first time. ‘I can’t say for sure.’
‘Where is Sayyid?’
‘He doesn’t leave his encampment. It’s in the mountains above—’
‘Qasam.’