Authors: Alan McDermott
“Come on,” he said, taking hold of her
arm. “This is the last hurdle. Once we’re across we’ll be home
free.”
She followed his lead, refusing to
release her grip on his hand until they reached the safety of the opposite
bank. Shaw was still pinning the enemy down whenever he saw any sign of
movement and Garcia told him to join up with them. Rather than leave the
Dillon to the enemy, Shaw firstly emptied the magazine in their direction
before pressing the latch on the safing top cover and opening it, which put the
weapon into ‘safe’ mode. He then extracted a pin from a fragmentation
grenade and jammed it between the latch and its housing. The sergeant took up
the defence while he navigated his way to the other side, and when the grenade
exploded it tore off the latch, rendering the weapon unusable. Grant had
calmed Vick down enough to get her to let go of him and was waiting with the
Claymores when he climbed up the bank.
“Let’s get into the jungle and leave an
obvious trail,” he said. “I’ll set the first one up after a hundred yards
and the other fifty yards after that.”
They set off once again, this time at a
faster pace. When they came to a good spot, Grant stopped and urged the
others to continue onwards. Garcia pulled out a device and began punching
keys.
“Just marking the position on my GPS,”
he said when he saw Grant’s quizzical expression. “If it doesn’t get
tripped in the next hour we’ll come back and disarm it once reinforcements
arrive.”
Grant secured one end of the tripwire
around the trunk of a tree and pulled it across the path they had created
before securing the other end in the trigger mechanism. He then covered
the mine itself with detritus from the surrounding area and moved on to set up
the next one.
With both traps set they jogged after
the others, happy in the knowledge that if they were still being pursued the
mines would at least slow their efforts, if not halt them altogether.
After another twenty minutes the first
signs of morning broke through the trees, bringing with it a downpour. A
muffled explosion from their rear signalled one of the traps being sprung and
that told them they had a sizeable lead on those following. Grant saw it
as the ideal time to take a short rest and he showed the kids how to catch
rainwater in leaves to quench their thirst. It had been a long time since
any of them had taken on liquid and he decided to let them drink their fill
before moving on again.
Vick was standing a few feet away from
him, her face pointing towards the heavens as she enjoyed the impromptu
shower. Despite the setting — or perhaps because of it — she struck Grant
as the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen, and in that instance he knew he
could never bear to let her go. He also knew that it would be unfair,
even irresponsible, to drag her into what was undoubtedly going to be a titanic
struggle to reclaim his former life.
His thoughts were interrupted when she
came over and put a gentle hand on his arm.
“I’m sorry for making all that noise at
the river,” she said. “I just panicked.”
Grant told her not to worry about
it. No-one had been hurt and they were almost out of danger. It was
a bittersweet thought, as he knew it would mean saying goodbye for the last
time.
“I haven’t even thanked you for saving
our lives,” she said, and kissed him softly on the cheek.
“Come with me.”
The words were out of his mouth before
he knew it, and he couldn’t tell who was more shocked by them. For the
first time in his life his heart had been battling his head, and that simple
peck on the cheek had been the clincher.
Vick saw the look of panic on his face
and regained her composure before he could retract the request. “Okay.”
Grant was about to backtrack, to make an
excuse for the outburst, when Sonny interrupted and told him that Garcia wanted
a word with them. He grabbed his weapon and they walked over to the
sergeant, his thoughts still jumbled.
“The Colonel has been in touch. He
said that Callinag has sent out the first of his patrols and they should be in
the area pretty soon.”
“That’s not good,” Grant said. “If
they see us it is going to raise a lot of questions and we can’t afford to hang
around to answer them.”
“I know, the Colonel explained your
situation. I was going to tell you a few minutes ago but I didn’t want to
interrupt your reunion.” He nodded towards Vick with a knowing smile and
Grant wondered if his feelings for her were as obvious to everyone else.
Their sly grins confirmed the worst.
“Bollocks to you lot! What else
did the Colonel say?”
“Your friend has arranged to pick you up
ten miles off the west coast of the island. He’ll be there in forty eight
hours.” Garcia read off the co-ordinates to the remaining Claymore so
that Evans could transfer them to his own device before handing his own GPS
over to Grant.
“Your rendezvous is the first number in
the list,” Garcia said, explaining how the device worked. “I’ve named it
Timmy so you know which one it is. Just select it from the list and it
brings up a map showing your current location and the destination.”
Grant took the device, hit the Back
button and saw two other items on the list: Meeting and Sleep. “What are
these?”
Garcia explained that Sleep represented
a small cave four miles to the south that they could hide in until they were
ready to head out to sea. It was an area of little activity and so the
chances of being found were slim. “The Colonel is making arrangements for
a boat to be left at this location,” Garcia said, bringing up the Meeting
co-ordinates. “It will be delivered at ten tomorrow evening, which will
give you roughly six hours to get on station.”
Grant stowed the device in his
pocket and thanked them for helping with the rescue.
“You’ve got a good team here,
Sergeant. I’m sorry about Keane.”
There was naturally a professional
rivalry between all armed forces units, each believing themselves to be the
best. However, deep down it was begrudgingly accepted that the SAS were
the true masters of special warfare, and so Garcia recognised the short
statement as praise indeed. He too would miss Keane, but like Grant, his
years as a professional soldier had prepared him for such events.
“It comes to all of us,” he said philosophically.
Grant asked Sonny and Len to give him a
moment while he squared things with Vick. He still couldn’t understand
why he’d made her the offer, but it was something he couldn’t go through
with. Vick saw the look on his face as he approached and guessed what was
coming.
“Don’t you dare try and leave me here,”
she warned him. Grant put up his hands to placate her but she was going to have
her say, whether he liked it or not.
“You just asked me to come with you!”
“This isn’t your fight, Vick.”
“Don’t give me that!” she shouted.
“I’ve been stuck in this jungle for three months and my government did
nothing!”
He tried to keep his voice level rather
than engage in a shouting match. “Vick, where I’m going it will be
dangerous. I can’t ask you to be part of that.”
“Dangerous! What would you call
the last few hours? A walk in the park? Tom, I’m coming with you!”
“It won’t be the same kind of danger,
Vick. Here you know who your enemies are. Back in England you’ll
have no idea until it is too late.”
“I can handle it,” she said, defiantly.
“Like you did at the river? You
nearly cost that child her life and your actions gave away our position to the
enemy.”
Vick didn’t like the accusation but had
to admit that she’d not covered herself in glory. The tension of the last
quarter of a year began to bubble to the surface and the thought of endangering
the child’s life finally broke her resolve. As the tears came Grant
placed a gentle hand on her cheek and rubbed them away with his thumb.
“Vick, I love you, but where I’m going
—”
“What?”
Grant looked confused, while Vick
suddenly perked up. “What?” he asked in return.
“You said you loved me.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Yes you did, Tom Gray! You said
‘Vick, I love you’!”
As he struggled to rewind the last few seconds
in his mind she took advantage of his bewilderment and grabbed his face,
planting her lips onto his. He wrapped his arms around her and returned
the kiss, his argument for leaving her on the island crumbling with every
passing moment.
Sonny walked past and slapped Grant on
the shoulder.
“Get a room, guys. Better yet, I
know a good cave not far from here…”
Grant realised that he’d been outflanked
and outmanoeuvred, but a part of him knew that he hadn’t really been putting up
much of a fight.
“I’m serious,” he said as he held her
close. “The next few weeks are going to be tough. It may even be
months before this is all over.”
“I don’t care, I’m coming with you.”
He slipped an arm around her shoulder
and they set off in pursuit of Len and Sonny.
“So what’s your plan?” she asked.
“Plan A is to take a shower. After
that I want to find the people who are trying to kill me.”
It was Vick’s turn to look
confused. “A couple of days ago the government was sending someone to
rescue you.” She pointed up the trail towards his friends. “I take
it that was these two. What’s changed?”
“It’s a long story.”
Vick smiled. “I’ve got all night.”
Chapter 14
Friday 20th
April 2012
Azhar Al-Asiri finished the Asr, or
afternoon prayer — the third of five he would perform that day — before picking
at a plate of flat bread and Sajji, a lightly-spiced leg of lamb cooked by
roasting it next to an open fire. The food was good, freshly prepared by his
‘family’ in the home situated in the Pashton Abed district of Quetta,
Pakistan.
The people he lived with weren’t
actually blood relatives, nor was the dwelling a single apartment.
Instead it was three apartments connected by hidden doorways, and his family
consisted of a daughter, Nyla, and two grandchildren. Nyla was in fact
the widow of a martyr who had given his life to the cause, and her two
children: the girl, Hifza; and her son, Mufid, played an integral part in
ensuring Al-Asiri remained anonymous.
His accommodation could have been more
opulent, but that would have attracted unwanted attention. His preference
was to live in simple surroundings, just another face in a city of two
million. That wasn't to say he placed all of his trust in this simple
ruse. The buildings surrounding him were home to his loyal supporters,
and lookouts were posted in a wide radius to give notice of any unwanted
visitors. They ranged from the young boys playing football to the old man
smoking and drinking coffee outside the café, all keeping an eye out for
government troops or foreign snatch squads.
Each of the lookouts carried a simple
early-warning device. It was the size of a matchbox and had a button in
the middle, which, when pressed three times in rapid succession would send a
signal to Al-Asiri’s home. This would allow him time to get down to the
cellar where a network of tunnels led to various exfiltration points. By
the time his enemies got to his home he could be emerging from one of eight
different shafts and be spirited away by his loyal followers.
A glance at his watch told him it was
almost time to check for messages. Wary that telephone calls could be
traced and Web traffic could be tracked by IP address, Al-Asiri kept no such
instruments on the premises. Instead all communications went through a
computer in the basement of a jewellers shop half a mile from his apartment.
The shop had a CCTV system that would be
expected in any such establishment, but as well as monitoring the shop and its
customers it was used to keep an eye out for uninvited guests.
Access to the rear of the shop was
through a metal cage. The employees would use a security card to open the
outer door and once inside they would use the same card to release the inner
door. The outer door had to be closed before the inner would operate,
preventing more than two people entering the room at the same time. The
card system also recorded the movement of staff and prevented them sharing a
card. If an employee swiped his way into the workshop, his card would not
allow anyone else entry until he had swiped his way out again. Once
through the cage, the employees then had to negotiate a heavy wooden door which
finally granted access to the workshop.
All of this could be explained away as
security for the valuable stock, but the real purpose was to deny quick entry
to the cellar which lay beneath the workshop floor.
The communications room was constantly
manned throughout the day. Each shift lasted twelve hours and the room had
everything the occupant required to see them through to the handover: a
toilet, and food and water which were replenished four times a day.
It was to this communications centre
that Al-Asiri sent his ‘Grandson’, Mufid.
As always, he wrote his message on a
small piece of paper, rolled into a tight tube and placed it inside a small
plastic receptacle similar to a medicine capsule. The boy placed the
capsule under his tongue and took a walk to the jewellers’, ready to swallow
the evidence if anyone tried to halt his progress.
The trip was uneventful, and ten minutes
later he handed the capsule over to his uncle, who disappeared into the
back. A few minutes later he returned with an identical capsule which
Mufid took back to the apartment.
Al-Asiri read the note before setting
fire to it in an ashtray. Two more teams had reported in, making five in
total. Only one remained outstanding: Abdul Mansour’s, but given his
location Al-Asiri didn’t expect to hear from him until he was closer to civilisation.
It wasn’t as if he could simply walk into an Internet café in the middle of the
jungle, and Abdul knew better than to make contact via an insecure phone.
It was more likely that he would see his handiwork on the news channels before
he received a report, and knowing his young general, it would be something
spectacular.
He reflected on how far the young man
had come in such a short time, and it saddened him that he couldn’t quite trust
him fully. Mansour had arrived in Pakistan at a tender age and had been quick
to show his allegiance, dispatching a captured U.S. soldier with chilling
efficiency. The transition from taking parts in raids to planning and
leading them had been swift, and his execution of the attack on Tom Gray’s
fortress had been masterful.
However, he still had doubts about
someone so young being so capable.
His enemies would love nothing more than
to have an agent infiltrate the organisation, and it seemed a little strange
that Mansour should arrive on the scene with skills not normally seen in a
teenager from a poor area of London. He had since shown himself to be a
natural born killer, but according to background reports he had previously been
involved in nothing more serious than a few playground fights.
So where did he acquire these skills?
That had been the question on his mind for the last two years, and at first
he’d suspected that it had been courtesy of the British security
services. However, discreet surveillance had shown no signs of any
communications with anyone outside the organisation. In fact, all they
had seen was a devout Muslim, apparently true and loyal to the cause.
He had approved Mansour’s plan to attack
Tom Gray as a way of testing his credentials. If the attack had been
foiled it may have suggested that Mansour had tipped the security services off
and they had baulked at the idea, but he had actually succeeded, killing Gray
and denying him the chance to tell the government where his bomb was.
That they found it in time was perhaps luck, maybe good police work, but who
had Mansour actually killed? Tom Gray: a terrorist in his own
government’s eyes; a couple of his associates; and a handful of police
officers. Would the British government have allowed that toll in order to
protect Mansour’s true allegiance?
After all this time he still hadn’t come
to a conclusion about his young general, but the result of his Asian mission —
and more importantly Mansour’s next assignment in the U.K. — would offer the
defining answer.
* * *
Farrar had been sitting outside the office
for nearly twenty minutes when the door opened and the familiar figure of the
Home Secretary stormed out, his face like thunder. Farrar’s boss stuck
his head out and told him to enter, then offered him the warm seat recently
vacated by the Minister.
“You’ve got a reprieve,” Charles Benson
said without preamble. “It seems our friend Mr. Gray is a much more
resourceful character than I gave him credit for. The team we sent to
collect him has reported him missing.”
Missing? Farrar perked up at that
news.
“It seems there was a little altercation
with the locals and he managed to escape, along with his two acquaintances.”
“What about a search of the
island? They can’t have got very far.”
Benson dismissed the idea with a flick
of the wrist. “We haven’t got the resources or jurisdiction. The
reason I brought you back in is that you’ve known this man for over a
year. You’ve been through every inch of his file, spoken with him,
observed him. What are his intentions?”
Farrar considered his answer carefully.
If he admitted to having no idea, his usefulness would immediately
evaporate. Better to play the subject-matter expert.
“He’s got two things on his mind: the
first is revenge; the second is survival. Given the events of last year
I’m afraid we cannot discount the former.”
“Last year he had the advantage of
anonymity, plus a sound financial footing. Do you really think he’ll come
after you?”
The question left Farrar under no
illusion: the trail stopped with him.
“That’s a possibility, but it’s a long way
home. As you said, he has no money. I also know he hasn’t got a
passport, and he’ll need both to get back to the U.K. That gives us
plenty of time to set up border protocols across Europe and beyond.
“He will have to seek help from others,
and we have a comprehensive list of former acquaintances, from his Army days up
to his time as Managing Director of Viking Security Services. I’m
confident that anyone he contacts will be on that list.”
“That sounds like it could be a long
list. We can’t possibly monitor everyone on it,” Benson observed.
“True, but his buddies in Britain aren’t
going to be a lot of help to him right now. He’s going to need someone in
the local area and only two people spring to mind. One is in Vietnam, the
other in Singapore.”
Benson nodded. “What of the
remaining two, Levine and Campbell? Are plans in place to deal with
them?”
“They are. We expect those
problems to go away within the next fortnight.”
“Why so long?”
“We have to work to their patterns,”
Farrar explained, “otherwise suspicions will be aroused.”
Benson sat back in his chair and folded
his arms. “Consider this your last chance, James. If this mess
isn’t cleared up soon you can kiss your career goodbye. We cannot simply
blame this on the previous government, no matter how appealing it sounds.
I want an end to the whole Tom Gray saga, or you will be the one to take the
fall.”
Benson picked up a pen and opened a
folder, signalling the end of the meeting. Farrar got up from his chair
and let himself out of the office, the threat still clear in his head. As
he stepped from the government building into an April shower he knew that
failure wouldn’t simply mean spending the rest of his life in prison: his very
life depended on killing Tom Gray.
THE END