‘Give us a shout, Bamm-Bamm.’
‘What’s keeping you goddamn Arse-ies?’ he shouted.
‘There he is,’ Mudge pointed up into the jagged remains of the stairwell. ‘We’ll have to cross over there.’
Brody followed Mudge along the precarious edge of all that was left of the first-floor’s floor; or perhaps the ground floor’s ceiling. They jumped a two-metre gap - over a three-metre fall to the rubble below - and climbed up again onto the bottom step of the north-end staircase, that was now hanging out over nothing.
Bamm-Bamm was just above them, on the mid-floor landing, trapped against the wall by a twisted metal bed base. Above him the staircase continued to the third floor and no further.
‘What took you so long?’ Kennedy demanded. He was grinning like a fool.
‘Don’t you complain Monkey-boy,’ Mudge said. ‘The whole of Peshawar is being blown to smitherbloodyreens. You’re lucky we’re even alive to save your hairy bum.’
Brody tried to lift the mangled bed but realised it was wedged into the step above. He and Mudge had to get either side of it and yank with everything they had. The corner of the step crumbled and the bed lurched backwards nearly knocking them off the edge. They lifted it, turned and threw it up the stairs.
‘Whoa,’ Mudge said when he saw the state of Bamm-Bamm’s legs. ‘I bet that hurts like buggery, mate.’
‘Kinda lost feeling about 20 minutes ago, but,’ Kennedy wiggled his feet, then moved his ripped and bloodied legs. ‘They still work. Oh, and now they hurt again.’
‘Don’t even think about fainting, Bamm-Bamm,’ Brody said, watching what little colour there was in the guy’s face drain straight into his boots. ‘We still have to get you down from here, and I for one am not carrying you.’
‘And don’t throw up either,’ Mudge added, helping Brody help Bamm-Bamm to his feet. ‘Spud’s already been spewing all over town, ever since that fuckin Ashraf whacked him in the noggin with a rock.’
‘Ashraf? What the hell have you two been doing?’
‘What have we been doing? You mean while you’ve been lounging around on the stairs here?’ Brody dropped back down to the first floor and got ready to support Bamm-Bamm when Mudge lowered him down.
‘Wait, wait,’ Kennedy suddenly said. He pointed back to where he’d been lounging. ‘Get that for me will you, buddy.’
Mudge bent to pick up the whatever-it-was. ‘A TekBox?’ he said and tossed it down to Brody. ‘Are you looting, Bamm-Bamm? Can’t you get these back home?’
‘Don’t be a moron, Mudge. I took it from Ashraf’s room.’
‘Don’t you moron me, pebblehead,’ Mudge said, hooking his arms under Kennedy’s to ease him down off the step. ‘Why did you steal it then?’
‘It was on and playing after the last time they left the room. I was checking it out when I realised the room was wired to blow-the-fuck-up. So I grabbed it and ran.’
Kennedy’s messed-up legs made the going a little difficult but the three men made it out to the street in about ten minutes. Several local men came to help carry Kennedy clear of anything else that might still collapse, and gave them all some water.
Mudge went to get the motorbike he’d just dropped on the road when they’d arrived, while Brody explained the other disasters of the last 90 minutes.
When Mudge trudged back, he sat down with an uncharacteristic slouch. ‘Some bastard nicked the bike,’ he sighed.
‘My so-called car should still be parked around the corner,’ Kennedy said. He shook his head. ‘I can’t, no I don’t want to believe that about our HQ and the Consulate. Man, that’s just fucked. I mean, half the people who work there are Pakistani. And Muslim. What the hell is their problem?’
‘I tried to beat an answer to that question out of Ashraf but he refused to do anything except scream at me,’ Brody said.
‘Thanks mate,’ Mudge said to the Pashtun man who’d just handed him another bottle of water. The man nodded, then also offered a piece of cloth and pointed at Kennedy before continuing on his way. Mudge swivelled and dropped to his haunches to take a look at Kennedy’s leg.
‘Did you hit your head in there, Mudge?’ Brody asked him.
‘No why?’
Brody reached out with the flat of his hand, wiped the side of Mudge’s head over his right ear and then showed him all the blood.
Mudge laughed. ‘Yeah, well I was in our car when it got blown to buggery across the Far Frontier parking lot. Got kathumped around the inside of it like ice in a vitamiser, mate. Did you think I came back for you on that crappy bike just for the fun of it?’
‘What the hell are we actually going to do now, guys?’ Kennedy asked.
‘You need a doctor for a start,’ Brody said. ‘We’ll take you back to wherever all the American casualties are being taken.’
‘No,’ Kennedy raised his hands. ‘I’m not, you know, here, man. I can’t turn up and be counted. High price of being an American spy.’
‘None of you spooks are ever allowed to come in from the shit storm,’ Mudge corrected. He finished washing out the largest of Kennedy’s leg wounds, then wrapped it with the Pashtun’s makeshift bandage.
‘Yeah, but I couldn’t have gone to the Consulate for help, even if it was still there. Which it isn’t. Fuck. This is unbelievable. And, oh man,’ he groaned, ‘I don’t even have access to extra IDs. I’d stamp my feet if I thought it wouldn’t hurt. All I’ve got to my name is this stupid stolen TekBox.’
‘Mudge mate,’ Brody said thoughtfully. ‘All of our stuff was at…’
‘The Batcave,’ Mudge interjected.
‘Ok, what do we do now?’ Brody asked. ‘I feel like absolute crap which means I’ve probably got concussion, Bamm-Bamm is next to useless, and Useless is grinning at me like an idiot.’
‘That’s because I’m going to go get B-B’s car, come back for you two and then we’re getting out of town. Although, one more crack about me being less than Einstein and I leave without you.’
‘Where the hell can we go? Tora Bora in the Ghan is closer than our nearest unit,’ Brody said.
‘Look mate, mates,’ Mudge said, ‘we are not supposed to be in this country and the shit has been completely shredded by a very large fan. We’ve got fuck-all and that includes fuck-nothing; as in no passports, no papers, no friends, no comrades, no command structure, no clean jocks. We have to get out of Pesh before some bastard shoots us just for the fun of it.
‘We can hole up in Taxila or somewhere while you two recupe. I can make some calls or maybe zip down to Islamabad and get us some help from our High Commission there. I actually met the Commish once and she’s a top bird, so we should be fine.
‘If we’re not, well I still won’t be the one to remind you, Spud, that I wanted to stay in Kandahar where only the Taliban were shooting at us.’
Chapter Forty-Five
The White House, Washington DC
Monday 4am
‘Are you sure you don’t mind doing this, Adam?’ the Vice President asked, as he and Lyall entered one of the many sitting rooms around the Situation Room hub.
‘Of course not,’ Lyall said, pleased with the response he’d gotten after following the VP into the head. Manipulation was one of Lyall’s most favourite nouns, and interests.
And there was no one more malleable and suggestible than an already-worried man standing at a urinal with his dick in his hand.
The favour that Arlen Conte thought he’d asked of Lyall, of his own volition, was one Lyall had been fostering for a week or so. And now here it was. The Vice President wanted the Deputy Secretary of State to arrange something for him.
Lyall took out his cell phone. ‘I’m sure my, ah, my good friend Teddy will be willing to pass on your request on the quiet. This way it’s two steps away from you as well, Arlen. And with any luck we might be able to get them in place before you even get to Sydney.’
‘That would be good, because the last thing I want to do is insult our own Sec
ret Service by implying they’re not up to the task.’
Lyall smiled. ‘The only thing I can’t even guess at, let alone guarantee of course, is the availability. And while Rashid may have other teams, as you pointed out, the Guards are the ones with the reputation for saving the Australian Prime Minister. That fact alone should facilitate their late inclusion into the overall security arrangements for you during SETSA.’
‘I really appreciate this Adam. It just worries me that there’s a higher than normal threat level out there at the moment. I have a bad feeling whenever any of us leave the country.’
Lyall gave a dry laugh as he scrolled through his autodial and selected a name. ‘I completely understand Arlen. Mind you, it’s also getting to the stage where we can’t even go to Texas.’
The Ballymore, London
Monday 9am
Teddy Drake still had a good half hour before he was required for his Joint Intelligence Committee briefing on the situation in Pakistan. It was bound to be a very long day so he intended to make the most of the only meal he’d be able to take at his leisure. One more piece of toast with marmalade and some fresh tea should do the trick. He waved for the waiter as his phone rang. He apologised to his companions for being so rude as to even bring a phone to breakfast, let alone respond to it.
‘Edward Drake,’ he answered.
‘Teddy, it’s Adam Lyall.’
‘My, oh my, Adam, it must be the middle of the night over there.’
‘Close enough, Teddy. And none of us have been to bed. I assume you will have heard the news about Pakistan by now.’
‘I have, I have. A terrible thing, Adam. Do pass on my condolences. Now what can I do for you?’
‘I have a delicate request on behalf of the Vice President.’
‘Ah, as you know I am an expert at the delicate request,’ Teddy smiled.
‘Mr Conte will be attending the SETSA summit in Australia beginning this coming weekend. While he will naturally be travelling with his usual Secret Service retinue he feels, given the state of things abroad at the moment, that they may not be enough.’
‘Do tell him not to go to Texas at the moment either then, Adam.’
‘I’ve just done that very thing,’ Lyall said and allowed himself a laugh. ‘Anyway, we were wondering if you could help us out, with an indirect appeal, by having a word to the Telamon people regarding the services of their highly-motivated Titan Guards.’
‘Certainly, Adam, it would be my pleasure.’
‘One reason for asking this favour of you personally, is that I believe Rashid is still in London.’
‘Yes, he is,’ Drake couldn’t help chuckling. ‘What’s more, he is in fact sitting opposite me, along with his colleague Michael Dawson, and Peter Ebrey.’
‘It is a small world indeed, then,’ Lyall said.
‘Yes. Now Peter, as you may not know, is also a master of the well-kept secret so rest assured what gets said over breakfast goes down with the kippers. Give me the barebones, Adam, and I shall run them by young Darius. He’s such an agreeable fellow, that I’m sure that if the Titan Guards are available for such a job on short notice…’
Drake glanced at Rashid and said, ‘Australia, this weekend?’ Rashid and Dawson exchanged looks, shrugged and nodded.
‘It seems to be a likely possibility, Adam,’ Drake said. ‘We may even be able to get Jennifer Leland, the Australian High Commissioner, on side to put in a good fast word for us. She and Darius have been flirting over business all week.’
‘Great, thank you, Teddy. I have another matter regarding Sydney that I will ring you about later as it’s not something that Peter can share.’
‘I look forward to it, Adam. Now give me the details for Darius.’
The White House, Washington DC
Monday 4.15 am
Lyall and Conte returned to the Situation Room hot on the heels of a saviour with a huge tray of refreshments. Lyall helped himself to a sandwich and fresh coffee; noticed that CIA Director Joel Moody had finally turned up: then listened as Harry Corbin finished the update about the French capture of three of the Paris train bombers, including the ringleader of Brigade d’Etoile d’Euro, Ilia Dushenko.
The Secretary of State, sitting on the other side of the room next to Director Moody, suddenly swore and slapped his hand on the long table.
‘It seems that the Peshawar airport has also between attacked,’ he explained, when all heads turned. ‘And Joel has just informed me that we have a team on an undercover mission, somewhere in that area.’
Moody nodded. ‘We have Agency representation supporting a Special Forces group on a surveillance operation in Peshawar,’ he confirmed. ‘Operation Northern Arrow has been running under the radar up there for about three months. They are headquartered near the airport; and we have been unable to contact anyone there.’
‘Was this operation general surveillance or something specific?’ asked Admiral Parker, Head of the Joint Chiefs.
‘They were monitoring increased Taliban and al-Qaeda traffic at first.’
‘Increased traffic?’ van Louden laughed. ‘Those mountains are the cradle of insurgency and the nursery for wannabe terrorists. Wouldn’t al-Qaeda have to decorate a float and take out full-page ads to actually draw attention to a noticeable increase?’
A laughing rumble of agreement with the Def-Sec’s statement rippled around the table, and prompted a few finger-pointing comments. It seemed the CIA was already being nominated for probably doing the ‘something’ that brought on this latest attack.
Director Moody chose to ignore the judgmental looks. ‘As I said, we were keeping an eye on things, waiting for some mid-level al-Qaeda operatives to turn up, as rumoured.
‘Instead, our team found themselves eyeballing Ashraf Majid, allegedly one of Osama’s top-level recruits and, more than likely, the architect of last year’s attacks on the US and UK embassies in Turkey and Morocco, and a heap of other trouble in North Africa.’
‘Why did you say ‘allegedly’ with such questionable emphasis, Joel?’ asked Conte, always on the ball.
‘Because that was what we believed about him, Mr Vice President.’
‘The CIA believes that about every terrorist these days,’ Admiral Parker remarked.
‘Now that’s where you’re wrong. The generic al-Qaeda connection is actually a misconception of the Administration not the Agency,’ Moody said.
‘Are we to assume then that something happened to change even your opinion of this man?’ Adam Lyall asked.
‘Yes indeed. Last week, under the watchful eye of our field officers, a strange combination of men came together in a Peshawar café. Ashraf Majid was joined by Bashir Kali, his lifelong friend and fellow terrorist. Kali, as leader of a new subcontinent group called Groh Sitaarah, was the man who prematurely claimed responsibility for that foiled plot at the Commonwealth meeting in India last June.
‘We assumed then that this Groh Sitaarah, which is Urdu for ‘Star Brigade’ by the way, was yet another offshoot, affiliate, whatever of - yes - al-Qaeda. However, the three other men who attended last week’s quite out in the open meeting in Peshawar put paid to that idea.
‘Bashir Kali arrived with Jamal Zahkri al Khudri, his faithful sidekick Samir Krenar, and former Jeemah Islamiyah bomber, Dumadi Arjuna.’
There was silence for a moment as everyone contemplated the significance of what Moody had belatedly laid on the table. Then a dozen people at once began demanding why these terrorists had not been taken out, arrested, dealt with, stopped then and there, or simply been blown to kingdom come before they did what they had, so obviously, now done.
‘Unbelievable,’ Conte declared. ‘What the hell is wrong with you guys? You have Jamal Zahkri and four other of the world’s Most Wanted men in your sights and you do nothing?’
‘Mr Vice President, sometimes nothing is all we can do. We have no jurisdiction in Pakistan. Our ‘freedom versus extremism’ argument does not wash in that country. The mistakes
NATO and the US military have made in the whole region, in the last too many years, means we barely get cooperation any more. And when I say ‘we’, I’m not talking about the CIA. I’m talking about the USA.
‘Our hands were tied. Even with this tragedy,’ Moody waved at the screen that was replaying the satellite camera footage from Peshawar, ‘we are hamstrung. We’ll be lucky if we can even get in to look for our colleagues - the ones that weren’t supposed to be there, I mean.’
‘Question,’ Lyall raised his hand. ‘Isn’t that murdering sonofabitch Jamal Zahkri now the grand wazir of Atarsa Kára.’
‘Yes, precisely,’ Moody exclaimed. ‘That’s what I was about to say. If Atarsa Kára is responsible for this attack, then Jamal Zahkri’s little band of already-known terrorists is growing.’
‘And his particular brand of terror also attracts a different kind of enemy recruit,’ Aiden Bonney said. ‘The soldiers of Atarsa Kára aren’t required to die in order to destroy us. There are no suicide bombers in his club. Zahkri only recruits fighters who want to live forever, so they can keep on killing us forever.’
Moody threw his hands up. ‘We know from French Intelligence that Dushenko’s Brigade d’Etoile d’Euro is an AK unit. If Bashir Kali’s group, Groh Sitaarah, has also aligned with Atarsa Kára then my friends we are in deep trouble.
‘It means we have a serious new player on the world stage organising itself against us. Atarsa Kára is not aligned to, but may well turn out to be worse than al-Qaeda.’
‘Al-Qaeda is just a name we give things, mostly so we can blow them up.’ The President had spoken - for the first time in half an hour.
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’ Janeway asked him.
‘Sorry, it’s just that we were talking about this very thing in London last week. Remember Adam? It was you, me, that Rashid fellow and his surfer buddy, and the British PM’s wife.’ Brock looked thoughtful. ‘And their spy chief.’
Lyall, like everyone else, was unable or unwilling to respond or even react.
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