Firefight (31 page)

It was the third bullet that killed him as it thudded directly
into the upper region of his head.

The Afghan crumpled to the ground. Motionless. Dead.
Will's training demanded that he walk over to his target
and despatch a head shot to ensure that the guy had been
finished off. But there was no need. No one took that kind
of punishment and lived. Not even Faisal Ahmed.

There is nothing more silent than death and in the stillness
that followed, Will almost forgot that he'd been hit.
He staggered towards Ahmed's body and looked down at
him. The man's face was unrecognisable. A bloodied mess.
And as Will stared at the sight he had longed for, he felt
curiously numb.

Ahmed had been right, the thought flashed through his
head. Revenge wasn't sweet. Revenge wasn't what he
thought it would be at all.

And then, with a sudden, agonising stab, the pain hit him
- a cold, sinister pain spreading from his wound. He felt
his legs going weak and, looking down, he saw he was
losing blood quickly. He needed help, but there was one
thing he had to do first. Will bent down and felt in between
the folds of the dead man's clothes. Sure enough there was
a mobile phone.

He pocketed it, then staggered back to the door.
Taking one look back at the room - it looked like a
fucking slaughterhouse - he stumbled along the landing
and down the hall, leaving a trail of blood. He started
to feel light-headed and as he went down the stairs he
stumbled, smearing blood over the banister as he fell
against it.

At the foot of the stairs he tumbled again. Jesus, the
blood was pouring out of him now. He needed help.
Quickly. It took all his strength to push himself up to
his feet and he slipped slightly in his own blood as he
launched himself across the hallway towards the front
door.

The room was spinning. He gritted his teeth and banged
weakly on the door. Then collapsed to the ground.

The door opened and the armed policeman towered
above Will. It took him a moment to take in what was
happening. 'Fucking hell!' he muttered as he saw the blood
flowing out of Will's gunshot wound.

When Will spoke his voice sounded alarmingly weak,
even to him. 'Get me a medic,' he croaked, hoarsely. '
Now!
'

And then, like a black wave crashing over his mind,
darkness engulfed him as he passed out.

Will awoke gradually. The first thing he noticed was the
pain.

His left shoulder throbbed and pulsated; the rest of his
body ached and his head had the woolly stuffiness that
instantly told him he had been sedated. There was something
on his face and as he forced his bleary eyes open he
realised it was an oxygen mask. It was uncomfortable and
water vapour from his breath had condensed on the inside.
Fumbling to take it off, he noticed a dressing on his shoulder,
fresh and white and taped down on to his skin with sticking
plaster. Each of his hands had intravenous tubes injected
into the skin and on either side of his bed there were clear
bags of colourless liquid being drip-fed into his system.

The curtains in his room were closed and he noticed in
his half-awake state that there was carpet on the floor. That
meant it was a private room. A private hospital. But where?
With difficulty he pushed himself up on to his elbows, but
he soon collapsed heavily back down on to the bed and
closed his eyes again.

'How are you feeling, Will?' a voice asked.

Will forced his eyes open again. He hadn't noticed anyone
else in the room and he didn't like the surprise. The voice
was familiar, but for the moment his mind was too muddled
for him to be able to place it. 'Who's that?' he breathed
with difficulty.

A pause, and then he became aware of a figure standing
over his bedside. He opened his eyes and squinted them into
focus. A face appeared - thick black hair and square glasses.

'Pankhurst,' Will said, weakly. 'Where the hell am I?

'Hospital,' Pankhurst stated, before repeating his question.
'How do you feel?'

'Like shit.'

'Then you feel better than you look. It's been touch and
go for you. Priestley's house looked like a bloodbath, Will,
and our guys seemed to think that a lot of the blood was
yours.'

'Ahmed hit me.'

'Obviously. But you hit him better. Assuming, that is, that
the chap with half a face was indeed Faisal Ahmed.'

'Yeah,' Will replied. 'That was him.' He groaned as a wave
of pain passed through his wound.

'Then congratulations,' Pankhurst replied, blandly. 'You
got what you wanted. Does that make you feel a bit better?'

For some reason it wasn't a question Will felt inclined to
answer. His face screwed up again as another wave of pain
hit him.

'You have a self-administered morphine drip attached to
you,' Pankhurst pointed out. He fumbled by Will's bedside
and showed him the handheld pump. 'I wouldn't recommend
using it, though.' He placed the pump just out of
Will's reach.

Will looked up at the DG's blurry face. 'Why the hell
not?' he asked, suddenly desperate for the morphine now
he knew it was there.

Pankhurst took a couple of steps backwards.

'Because you need to get out of here as quickly as possible.
We managed to scrape you up from Priestley's house without
the CIA knowing where we were taking you, but we're
not going to be able to keep them in the dark for long.
They'll track you down any moment and I can promise
you that they're going to want some answers.'

'About what?'Will asked. His throat was desperately dry
and his mouth had an unpleasant taste in it.

'About Priestley, Will,' Pankhurst replied, like a patient
teacher explaining something to a child. 'About how he
died.'

'Ahmed shot him,' Will said.

'We know that, Will. And you shot Ahmed. But things
don't stack up at the scene. For example, why did Ahmed
have two guns - one in his hand and one on the floor?'

'I—' Will hesitated as he desperately tried to kick his
slow-moving brain into gear.

But Pankhurst interrupted him. 'Be quiet, Will, and listen
to me. You've got what you wanted. You've played it out as
far as it can go. But the game stops here. I don't have to be
Sherlock Holmes to know that there's more to Priestley's death
than meets the eye. Nor do the Americans. They've just lost
one of their top men and they're going to want to get to the
bottom of it. That means coming after you. I can help you,
Will, but not until you tell me what the hell this is all about.'

Will breathed in sharply through his teeth. The pain in
his shoulder was agonising, but he tried to put it from his
mind. Pankhurst was right. If the Americans suspected something,
they'd be coming after him. He didn't know if he
could trust the DG of MI5, but right now he was the lesser
of two evils.

'Have you ever heard of Operation Firefight?' he asked.

Pankhurst stared at him blankly.

'Then you'd better listen carefully.'

And then he told him.

Pankhurst's face was expressionless as the extent of
Priestley's deceit unfolded. He said nothing, simply letting
Will explain, in detail, what he knew. When he had finished,
Pankhurst remained silent for a while. He stepped over to
the window of the room, pulled back the curtain an inch
or two and glanced outside.

When he turned around again he had the air of a man
who had made a decision.

'A lot of things suddenly make more sense than they did
ten minutes ago,' he said, quietly.

'I'm glad
you
think so,' Will commented.

'Trouble is, with Faisal dead, there's no way you can prove
what you just told me.'

'For fuck's sake,' Will whispered. 'Why would I make
it up?'

'Oh, don't worry, Will.
I
believe you - for what it's worth.

But you've got to see that this is too politically sensitive to
go any further up the chain. You understand that, don't
you?'

Will said nothing.

'Everyone's going to deny it, Will. Everyone's going to
pretend it never happened. You're going to be the wild card,
though. You're going to be the one they'll want to silence.
And they're going to come to me, Will, sooner than you
think - put pressure on me to hand you over. If they do
that, I'm not going to be able to say no. Not if you're still
around. You need to get out of here. You need to disappear.
And soon.'

There was a silence as Pankhurst's words sunk in.

'How long have I been out?'

'Forty-eight hours.'

'And where are we?'

'Just off Great Portland Street. We kept you out of the
public hospitals as a safety measure. I have to go now,
Will. They can't know you've tipped me off. I'll keep
them off your tracks for as long as I can, but they won't
be relying on me in order to learn your location.' He
approached the bed again and looked down at Will, whose
eyesight was clearing now. The DG's face appeared sharper.
'You've done a good job, Will, but now you're on your
own. If the Americans think I'm involved in what went
on there it could have repercussions that nobody wants,
so I can't have any more face-to-face contact with you.
I hope you understand. But if you need anything - any
help from Five - get in touch discreetly and we'll see
what we can do.'

Will nodded his head, weakly. 'Thank you, sir.'

'Thank
you
,Will,' the DG said quietly. Will watched as
he turned and swiftly left the room.

Will lay in silence for a few minutes, trying to make
sense of what Pankhurst had just said. He knew nobody
could nail Priestley's death on him, but Pankhurst was
right - the Americans would put two and two together
about him killing Priestley and they'd want some answers.
Answers he didn't want to give. He pushed himself on to
his elbows once more, this time managing to stay up, even
though it felt as though it took up all his energy. Slowly
he heaved his legs over the side of the bed, then sat still
for a moment while he allowed a moment of nausea to
pass.

The intravenous needles were taped on to his skin. He
fumbled at the sticking plaster and managed to pull it off
before pulling out the needles as slowly as his shaking hands
could manage. A small amount of blood seeped from the
punctures in his flesh, but he barely noticed it against the
altogether more overwhelming pain of the bullet wound.
Will pushed himself up on to his feet and took a couple
of shaky steps before being forced to stop and hold on tight
to the foot of the bed, his legs like jelly.

As he stood there, the door opened and a nurse walked
in. She was young, with pretty blonde hair and grey-blue
eyes that looked aghast at Will when she saw him out of
bed. 'What are you doing?' she gasped, stepping forward
and putting her small hands against Will's naked arms. They
felt warm on his skin. 'You have to get back into bed,' she
urged him. 'You're not well enough to be up and about.'

Will gritted his teeth against the pain, then brushed her
aside. 'I'm discharging myself,' he growled. Looking around,
he saw some clothes draped over a chair. He staggered
towards it and started to dress, wincing painfully as he pulled
a shirt over his wound.

'But the doctors—'

'Fuck the doctors,' Will growled, impatiently, before
immediately regretting it. The poor girl was only doing her
job. He turned round to look at her and saw an expression
of thin-lipped disapproval on her attractive face.

'I'm going to find one,' she stated, sternly. 'You need a
clean dressing. Now
stay there.
' She spun on her heel and
left the room.

Will continued to dress, the adrenaline surge created
by the sudden urgency doing a great deal to clear his
head.

Once he was dressed, he looked around. By his bedside
there was a clear plastic bag with his personal belongings
- a wallet, a watch and Faisal Ahmed's mobile phone. It
was the sight of the phone that brought everything flooding
back to him. Ahmed's final minutes. His plea to Will to
take care of his sister. His last, reckless moment of madness.
Will had expected to feel elated that Ahmed was dead,
but he didn't. He didn't really feel anything. Just a pain
in the shoulder and an urgent need to get the hell out of
there before anyone else caught up with him.

He opened the door and looked both ways down the
corridor. There was a glass-fronted nurse's station opposite,
but it was empty, and about halfway down the corridor was
a trolley full of clean linen. To Will's relief there were no
people. He didn't know which way was the exit, so at
random he turned right into the corridor and followed his
nose. He hadn't got far, however, when he heard voices
approaching, so he opened the nearest door and hid.

The room in which he found himself was a medical store
cupboard, neatly packed with hundreds of small boxes and
bottles of medicine. It had a clean, antiseptic smell - the
smell of fresh bandages - and Will thanked his good luck.
He found a stash of sterilised swabs and antiseptic lotion;
then he scanned through the drugs until he located the one
thing he was sure he was going to need. Orally administered
morphine would make it possible to cope with the pain
when he was out of there. Finally, he found a set of freshly
laundered doctor's overalls. Putting them on was painful and
difficult, but they meant that he would have a better chance
of walking along the hospital's corridors unchallenged.

He remained in the store cupboard for several minutes
before quietly pushing the door open a few inches. He
listened carefully. Nothing, so he slipped out.

Minutes later he was walking past the reception. It took
every ounce of energy he had to walk normally, but it paid
off. Ignoring the excruciating pain in his shoulder, he walked
out into the street.

Nobody even raised an eyebrow.

*

Zack Levinson looked around his new London office -
bland, featureless shit hole that it was - with bleary eyes.

Levinson was tired. Damned tired. He'd caught the redeye
from Washington just the night before and the DCIA
was already on his case. Donald Priestley's body had barely
been cold when Levinson had been drafted in to replace
him and for a few blissful hours he thought he was on to
a soft option - an extended vacation in London. He'd soon
been disabused of that stupid idea.

The DCIA was in a panic - that much was clear. Levinson
didn't know why he wanted former SAS soldier Will Jackson,
but he
really
wanted him, and the full force of the CIA's
London resources were given over to finding the guy.

Levinson's mobile rang and he answered it immediately.
'Give me good news,' he said.

'We think we've found him.'

'Alle-fuckin'-luia. Where?'

'Central London. Private hospital. We're going in now.'

Levinson breathed a sigh of relief. 'OK,' he said. 'Go get
him and bring him straight to me.'

He hung up and leaned back in his chair. Zack Levinson's
day had just taken a turn for the better.

*

The moment he walked out of the hospital, Will hailed a
taxi. He slumped heavily into the back seat. 'Holiday Inn,'
he told the driver. 'Nearest one.'

'You all right, mate?' the driver asked, genuinely worried.

'Fine,' Will breathed. 'Just drive.'

The taxi slid away.

Half an hour later he was in a reassuringly bland room
of the hotel, having checked in under an assumed name.
He sat on the side of the bed, swallowed a couple of
morphine tablets, and then set about attending to his
wound. He winced as the dressing peeled away from the
skin, the flimsy gauze sticking slightly to the still wet
blood around the stitched-up entry point. He staggered
to the bathroom, splashed cold water over the sticky
wound, then dabbed it dry with a clean, white hotel towel
which immediately became stained with patches of scarlet.
Back in the bedroom he unwrapped the packaging of the
fresh dressing with shaking fingers, pressed it to the wound
and stuck it to his skin with sticking plaster. It looked a
lot less professional than the previous job, but at least it
was clean.

Minutes later, to his overwhelming relief, the morphine
started to kick in. Will stood up and looked at himself in
a mirror. Jesus, he thought. You look like death warmed
up. His skin was pallid, his eyes bloodshot and tired. He
wished, more than anything, that he could just lie down
and sleep - for days, if necessary. But that wasn't going to
be possible. His mind was suddenly ablaze with plans, with
things he had to do. Pankhurst's warning had been stark,
and for the first time ever Will felt an absolute confidence
that the DG of Five was on his side. And Pankhurst was
right. Will might have done enough to stop the law coming
after him, but the CIA would be slightly more tenacious,
especially if they suspected that he knew anything about
Operation Firefight.