by Chris Ryan
Jed took the digital camera from his kitbag, hooked out its wire and plugged it into the USB port on the computer. It took a moment for the machine to find the right software, then a few more minutes for the pictures to download. As soon as they were loaded, he fired up the Internet connection, and started putting the pictures on to an email to send to Laura. Next he plugged the memory stick into the computer to upload the data they had taken from the computers at the plant. The connection was slow – no chance of broadband out here, he thought – and it looked set to take at least an hour to complete the task. ‘Any chance of something to eat?’ he said, looking up at Mansour.
‘I’ve got a few dates in the car, maybe some bread. I’ll get them for you,’ said Mansour. ‘And there’s a microwave out the back if you want coffee.’
‘Thanks,’ said Jed.
He looked back at the computer. Another batch of pictures had loaded themselves on to an email and were about to send.
Mansour stood next to Jed, staring at the screen. ‘Tell me,’ he said softly. ‘How soon do you think the invasion will be?’
Jed shrugged. ‘Couple more weeks at least,’ he said. ‘They haven’t got all the kit into Kuwait yet.’
Mansour nodded. His right hand was playing with his moustache. ‘Will they attack Baghdad first? I have children. Maybe I should move them.’
Jesus, thought Jed to himself. How the hell do I know what the nutters in charge of this war are going to do? ‘The plan is to punch our way up from Kuwait,’ he said. ‘With any luck it will all be over by the time we get to Baghdad.’
Mansour looked at him doubtfully. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Not really,’ said Jed. ‘The men on the ground are the last guys who are likely to have any idea what the hell is going on.’
Jed closed his eyes, and tried to sleep. He was stretched out in a corner of the workshop, and the last time he’d checked his watch, it was just after three in the afternoon. Mansour had brought them the dates, some dayold bread and a jar of instant coffee. It wasn’t much, but Jed was grateful for anything he could get. It had taken an hour in total to send all the pictures through to Vauxhall, and by the time that was done there was nothing to do except get as much rest as they could while they were waiting for the pictures to be analysed.
With any luck, they’ll be fuelling up a Black Hawk down in Kuwait right now, he’d told himself as he lay down, putting his head back on his kitbag. Ready to lift us out of this hellhole.
Sleep wouldn’t come. He’d closed his eyes a dozen times, and slowed his breath. Usually Jed could kip anywhere: for all the hard-guy image it was, he sometimes thought, the main qualification for surviving in the Regiment. Get your head down, and you’ll be OK. Not today, however. The deaths of Rob and Steve were still too fresh in his mind. He could see their faces and hear their voices in the days before they died: they were still there, alive in his mind. Two guys had died on the training courses he’d been on, and he’d had to go and talk to their parents about it afterwards. Sometime in the next few weeks, I’ll have to go and talk to Rob and Steve’s parents, he thought. Give them some crap about how they were brave men who believed in what they were fighting for. He’d have to talk to Rob’s wife Sandra, and tell his four-year-old son Callum why his dad wouldn’t be buying him that Nottingham Forest shirt for Christmas after all.
Sod it. It’s hardly surprising I can’t sleep …
He glanced towards the computer. A message was flashing on the screen.
Mail.
Jed clambered to his feet. Matt was still sleeping, an occasional snore rolling across from where he’d kipped down. He sat down in front of the computer, hitting the keys and looking closely at the screen. A string of meaningless letters flashed across it. Encrypted, Jed realised. Whatever they’re about to tell me, they don’t want anyone who might be eavesdropping on this Web connection reading it.
In his kitbag, he’d been given a USB flash key with a set of codes on it: they were one-use encrypts, applicable only to one message, so even if the Iraqis captured him, it wouldn’t matter if they found the key. He plugged it into the back of the computer, waiting a moment while the program downloaded itself. Then he opened up the email again. Slowly, the message started to take shape, until the words were crisp and clear on the screen.
‘Fuck,’ said Jed.
He slammed his fist down hard on the table.
‘Bugger, fuck,’ he said again.
Like any solider, Matt could wake up at the first hint of danger. He got up from the floor, and moved swiftly across to the desk. ‘What is it?’ he said.
‘Take a look for yourself,’ said Jed, standing up and walking away from the desk.
Matt leant over the computer. Jed was watching him as he looked at the screen. The words on the email were already burnt into his mind. He didn’t need to see them again. ‘The mission has been extended,’ it said flatly. ‘The plant needs to be completely destroyed. Repeat, completely destroyed. An incoming missile strike is scheduled for 2300 hours tomorrow. Repeat, tomorrow. The missiles will need incoming guidance. Position yourself for missile guidance. Confirm this order received and understood.’
‘I thought the invasion wasn’t scheduled for at least a couple of weeks,’ said Matt looking up. ‘Bugger it, man, I though the plan was to punch our way up through Basra, not start with missile strikes on the fucking centre of Baghdad.’
Jed shrugged. He tossed two spoons of instant coffee into a stained, cracked mug, added some water and put it into the microwave. ‘I don’t know what the hell was in that plant we took pictures of,’ he said grimly. ‘But whatever the hell it was, they’re starting a whole bloody war to destroy it.’
SEVENTEEN
Nick stood outside the house. It was a cold, imposing Victorian villa on Ballington Road in north Cambridge. Many of the other houses in the road had long since been split up into flats. This one was still intact. Worth at least a million, he thought. There was a Mercedes on the driveway, and the marks on the gravel suggested another car as well.
Professor Wilmington might be short on charm and honesty. But for an academic he clearly wasn’t short of money.
Nick checked his watch. It was just after nine in the evening. He’d walked for two hours after he’d left Beston in the pub. Enough time to straighten out his thoughts. And enough time to decide what to do next.
The lights were on in the hallway, but there was no sign of life in the main room, nor on the first floor. Nick started walking again. He’d take a closer look at the house from the back. The villa was detached, one of several, each one standing in its own neatly manicured plot. He walked a hundred yards, putting a couple of houses between himself and the professor. This one was empty, he thought. The lights were out, and there were no cars in the driveway. He stepped across the gravel, and headed towards the side alley that led into the garden. The door on the alley was locked, and there was some glass across its top, but Nick had equipped himself with some strong gloves, and could scale it easily enough. He dropped down into the garden, walking alongside the fence. It was a dark night, with the moon obscured by clouds, but most of the rain had cleared and he could see well enough. There was a shed, then a wall. Reaching up, he grabbed hold of it and hoisted himself up. With one swift look he checked whether it was empty, then lowered himself into the garden below. Somewhere nearby he could hear a dog barking. Not here, he decided with relief, and he stepped quickly through the garden towards the next wall.
The puzzle had slowly taken shape in his mind. Sarah was working on something to do with cold fusion. She might even have cracked it, though that might not matter. There would be plenty of people interested if she was just getting close. The oil industry for starters. Maybe a government. Maybe some other corporation. Hell, there was enough at stake for half the world to be looking for my daughter.
Wilmington was the key. He had been lying to him from the start. To protect what? Or whom? Nick didn’t know. That is why I have to get into
his house.
He dropped down into the back garden of Wilmington’s villa. For a moment he just crouched in the flower bed, glancing up at the house. A light was shining from the hallway, casting some flickering shadows out towards the lawn. He’d found the professor’s address by calling his mate Bill Horton, and getting him to tap it up from one of his police sources, but he hadn’t been able to get a phone number. It was unlisted, and would take several hours to find out. I don’t have that kind of time to play with, thought Nick as he started to walk across the lawn. I’ll just take my chances that he isn’t home tonight. And if he is? Then I’ll just beat the information out of him. There isn’t any risk I wouldn’t run if it meant helping Sarah.
Nick had only broken into a house twice before: once when he was fourteen, and some of the lads he ran around with had tried it on for a dare; and once when he was on his counterterrorism course during his early days with the Regiment. That was a quarter of a century ago now. The skills were rusty, but they were still there, and that was what mattered.
The back door led into the utility room. Glancing through, Nick could see a washing machine and freezer. He tried the door but it was locked. Next he tried the window to the utility room. Locked. He edged around the side of the house. A pair of French windows led from the sitting room on to the kitchen. Locked, with a bolt slung across the back. The professor was taking his security seriously. Nick edged towards the kitchen. There was one lamp on, but no one inside. The main window was locked, but next to it was a smaller window, half open, letting out the smells from the kitchen. Carelessness, thought Nick. That’s what burglars rely on. He pushed the window down. Just enough space for a man to squeeze through. He levered himself up the side of the wall, gripping on to the brick, and started to push himself through the space. His coat was snagging on its side, but there was enough space. He lowered himself to the floor. Mackerel, he thought, sniffing the air. Bloody smelly fish. That’s why they left the window open.
He’d equipped himself with a six-inch stainless-steel kitchen knife, its blade polished and glinting in the pale light coming through from the hallway. He gripped the weapon in his hand as he walked softly through to the hallway. One light was on, but otherwise the house was dark. He listened carefully. No TV, no hi-fi. Just silence. So far as it was possible to tell, there was no one home.
On one side of the hallway there was a large formal sitting room, painted a dark cream with two sofas positioned around a plasma TV screen. Nothing of interest there, Nick figured. Next to that, a dining room. A half-drunk bottle of wine was standing on the table, but apart from that it was clear. Behind the dining room was a study. Nick slipped inside. It was a small room, with a long window looking out on to the garden. There was a desk in one corner, with a computer on it, and the walls were lined with bookshelves. It was dark, and Nick didn’t want to switch on the lights. He took a moment to adjust his eyes to the gloom. A set of papers and notebooks were laid out on the desk. The man’s personal records, thought Nick. Maybe that’s where I’ll find the truth about the professor.
He took a small torch out of his jacket pocket and leant over the desk, flicking through a black leather desktop diary. Wilmington was a man of routines. Lectures on Mondays and Thursdays, tutorials on Tuesday afternoons, college appointments on Friday mornings. All ordinary stuff. Only one name stood out. Salek had been to see him five times in the last month. Who the hell was he exactly, Nick wondered. I’d like to know a lot more about that ugly-looking Arab.
Nick checked one of the drawers. They were piled thick with sheets of neatly tabulated paper. Equations littered most of them. They meant nothing to Nick: you had to be a trained physicist to know what any of them might mean. Next to them were some scrawled notes in spidery, pinched handwriting. Nick flicked through them, wondering if it would be safe to take them. Maybe Beston could figure out what they meant, or at least point him in the direction of someone who could. Then he paused. One of the pages was written in a different hand. He recognised it at once. A full, confident handwriting. Sarah’s. The page he was holding right now was written in Sarah’s hand, and he’d found it in the desk. The desk of the guy who said he didn’t follow her work …
The bastard, thought Nick. Maybe Sarah really had made an important breakthrough, just the way Beston said she had. Maybe the professor was planning on stealing it and passing it off as his own work. He could feel a sudden chill in his heart, as if he had just been plunged into a pool of icy water. Maybe the bastard murdered her so that he could take her discovery …
Nick could feel his hands shake as he gripped hold of the paper. In the past week he’d grown used to the idea that Sarah had disappeared. It was still possible she’d taken herself into hiding. It was possible she’d been kidnapped. But the idea that she might be dead? That hadn’t occurred to him before, not even as a possibility. And it was, in truth, too awful even to contemplate …
He looked at the words, but they meant nothing to him. A series of symbols, equations and formulas. He glanced around for a photocopier, but couldn’t see one. He cursed himself for not having brought a digital camera with him: he could have snapped away at the pages, then got copies made later. He riffled through the rest of the pages, then stopped. A bank statement. He held it between his hands. It was printed on Lloyds TSB paper, for an account in Wilmington’s name. He glanced at it quickly. There was a balance of more statements, nearly fifty thousand pounds in the account, but larger sums had been flowing through it in the past few months. There were nearly thirty sheets of paper in total. Nick took two, and folded them into his pocket. The chances were he’d never even notice they were missing.
Glancing at his watch, he could see that it was just after ten. Don’t push your luck, he told himself. The professor could be back at any minute. He walked quickly through the kitchen, riffling through the drawers of the dresser. Within seconds, he’d found what he was looking for. Everyone keeps a spare set of back-door keys somewhere around the house, and Wilmington was no exception. Never know when I might want to come back, Nick thought as he slipped the keys into his pocket. I haven’t finished with this bastard yet.
He opened the back door, locked it behind him and slipped back up to the street. It was empty at this time of the evening. Nick glanced left and right, but could see no sign of the professor. He started walking quickly, heading back towards the centre of Cambridge. He kept on walking until he saw a McDonald’s. Stopping inside, he ordered a quarter-pounder meal with a large coffee. As he sat down, he took a bite on the burger, suddenly aware that he hadn’t had anything proper to eat for a day at least. His body was weak with hunger, and he paused, stirring some sugar into the coffee, knowing that he needed to compose himself, and get some food into his stomach before he tried to do anything else. Christ, man, he told himself angrily. You’re bloody Regiment. You’re supposed to be able to keep fighting for days on a couple of biscuits and a bottle of water.
The food settled in his stomach, and he could feel the sugar hitting his bloodstream. He looked down at the bank statements. In the course of two weeks in January, slightly over ninety thousand had passed through Wilmington’s account. Another forty thousand had been paid out. There were no names next to any of the transactions, just a series of numbers from anonymous bank accounts. Nick stared at them for a minute, then fished out the mobile from his pocket. He checked the messages. There weren’t any. No missed calls. No texts. Nothing. He took a sip on his coffee, then pressed dial on one of the numbers stored in the phone’s memory earlier today.
‘You again?’ said Bill Horton as he picked up his call.
‘I need some help,’ said Nick. ‘I wanted to see if you could trace some bank account transactions for me.’
‘What are you up to, Nick?’ said Horton.
‘I’ve told you, it’s personal,’ said Nick. ‘I just need to know who an account belongs to.’
He was well aware that Horton’s firm did a lot of work for the big City banks. They all
had plenty of high rollers who needed protection sometimes, and they never minded paying big money to keep their key staff safe. That meant Horton had contacts with their security offices, which also meant he could tap into the networks that allowed banks to share information with one another. If anyone could figure out who these transactions were between, and do it fast, then it was Horton. ‘Please, mate …’ said Nick.
In the Regiment, a guy never said please. You didn’t say it among ex-Regiment men either. Unless you were really desperate, thought Nick. Like I am now.
There was just a moment’s hesitation on the line. ‘Email me the details,’ said Horton. ‘I’ll get it sorted for you first thing in the morning.’
‘I need it now,’ pressed Nick.
‘Sod it, mate,’ said Horton. ‘I’ve got to talk to some bankers, and I’m not calling them now.’
‘First thing in the morning,’ said Nick.
‘Sorted, mate.’
Nick shut the phone, and put the last of the chips in his mouth. He drained the coffee, and stood up. A cold blast of air hit him in the face as he started walking along the street. He tracked a man who appeared to be loitering outside the burger bar, wondering if he was following him. The man glanced up at him, scowled menacingly, then walked on. Just a drunk, Nick decided. He kept on walking. Cambridge was a student city, and he should be able to find an Internet café that was open all night. If he couldn’t, he’d just have to make his way down to London. He had to get these bank account details to Horton before morning.
If I can find out where Wilmington’s money comes from, maybe I can find out what’s happened to Sarah.
EIGHTEEN
Jed looked at Mansour. He was a strong, thick-boned man, with discipline and willpower. You needed to be strong just to survive in Saddam’s Iraq. To make the kind of living that Mansour was obviously making took guts and strength and brains. But this afternoon there was fear in his eyes. And rightly so, thought Jed grimly. The battle was about to rage down on the city, and there was no telling what the furnace would consume before it burnt itself out.