Firefight (32 page)

He had to make arrangements. Set things in motion. He
cursed the debilitating wound in his shoulder, but he couldn't
let it get in his way. Will could only stay anonymous for so
long; the Americans would catch up with him eventually.
Unless . . .

Unless . . .
He sat again on the side of his bed, a slideshow of
images flickering through his brain. He saw Latifa Ahmed,
brutalised and only days from death in the hut in
Afghanistan. He saw the bodies of his fellow SAS men,
dead and cold. He saw the flat, emotionless eyes of Faisal
Ahmed as they stood together by Priestley's bleeding
corpse. And he saw his family's grave, silent and still.

So much violence.

So much death.

And it seemed to Will Jackson as he sat in that bland
hotel room that there was only one way to put an end to
it. He looked out of the window as a strategy began to
form in his head.

By his side was the clear bag of his personal possessions
he had taken from the hospital. He opened it up and pulled
out the phone he had removed from Ahmed's body. There
were still bloodstains on it, though who the blood belonged
to he couldn't tell. He flicked through the memory until
he found what he was looking for.

Then, with a deep breath, he shuffled up the bed towards
the hotel phone. First he called directory enquiries; then,
when he had the number he needed, he dialled it.

The phone rang twice before it was answered. 'Good
morning, Thames House.'

'Put me through to the Director General,' he said. 'Tell
him it's Will Jackson on the line.'

*

Lowther Pankhurst put the phone down, then pressed his
fingertips together and closed his eyes. Jackson was asking
a lot. An awful lot. It could cost Pankhurst his job if it ever
came out.

But by God, if anyone had earned a break it was Jackson.
He thought back to the interrogation Latifa Ahmed had
undergone. Nasty. He and Jackson might have had their
differences, but the guy didn't deserve anything like that.
In an official capacity, Pankhurst had to keep his nose clean;
as a man, he owed Will Jackson a helping hand.

He buzzed through to his secretary. 'Get Ashley Jones up
here, would you?' he requested.

Minutes later, Jones was being ushered into the DG's
office. He was a good man. Unassuming, with his mousy
brown hair and short stature, but reliable. Discreet. He stood
respectfully on the other side of the desk and for a moment
Pankhurst couldn't help noticing the difference in attitude
between Jones and Jackson. A rueful smile flickered over
his face, but he quickly checked it.

'What I'm about to tell you goes no further than the
two of us,' he said.

'No, sir.'

'I need you to arrange two passports, then deliver them
to a contact in forty-eight hours. 11.30 a.m., Friday. St
Pancras Station.'

'The contact's name, sir?'

'You don't need to know that. He'll find you.'

Jones nodded, without asking any further questions.

'You have a pen and paper?' Pankhurst continued. 'Good.
Take this down. These are the details you'll need . . .'

*

It was a busy forty-eight hours, but slow, and it passed in
a haze of morphine. Will travelled twice out of London -
both of them difficult, traumatic trips, but necessary. When
he wasn't travelling, he stayed in his hotel room - out of
sight, recuperating as best he could, and hoping that Five
would come through for him.

As he lay alone in the room, he had time to reflect. He
didn't need any more regrets in his life, that was for sure.
Killing people had been his job for a long time, after all.
But while he was unable to mourn the passing of Donald
Priestley, in his moments of honesty he had started to feel
a grudging respect for the man who had killed his wife,
his daughter and his military colleagues.

Maybe that was why he was doing what he was doing.

Friday morning arrived and Will was up at eight o'clock.
It was a bright, clear day, not a cloud in the sky. The wound
was still painful, but bearable now and he felt he could face
the day without any morphine, avoiding the lethargy that
it brought on. He still cleaned the wound well, however,
and applied a new dressing before putting on the same
clothes he had been wearing for the past few days, which
were now beginning to smell.

He looked at his watch. Ten to nine. The meet was at
11.30. He'd stay in the room till eleven before making
his move. He lay down on the bed and switched the
television on in the hope that it would distract him. It
didn't.

There was a knock at the door. Will cursed. He'd put the
do not disturb sign on the handle when he first arrived,
but the cleaners seemed to ignore it. 'No thanks!' he shouted
grumpily.

A pause, then another knock. Firmer this time. 'Will
Jackson?' an American voice called.

Will's heart stopped. His fingers instinctively felt for a
gun, but he didn't have one. He glanced towards the window,
but the room was five flights up. There was only one way
out and that was through the door. He pulled himself to
his feet. 'Who is it?' he called, warily.

Another knock. Three solid, determined raps. Then the
voice again. 'Open the door, Jackson. We don't want to
break it down.'

His eyes flickered around the room. There was almost
nothing he could use as a weapon. The lamps were fastened
to the surfaces and there was nothing else of any weight
that would serve as a bludgeon. But on the floor there was
a dressing gown. Will picked it up and pulled the cord from
out of the loops, then pulled it tight from each end. It was
strong enough, should it come to that. Will held it firmly
in his right hand, then gingerly opened the door, keeping
the dressing-gown cord out of sight.

There were two men there, about Will's age, maybe a
little younger. They were dressed in casual clothes - jeans,
trainers and warm padded overcoats. One of them had his
hands in his pockets, and Will's practised eye immediately
noticed that there was more of a bulge in one of them
than there should have been. He was being held at gunpoint.

There were no introductions, no pleasantries. 'We'd like
you to come with us,' the man with the gun said, almost
politely.

Will sniffed. 'How did you find me?' he asked.

The man inclined his head slightly, but didn't answer.
'There's two ways to do this,' he said. 'Our way or the other
way. Our way is easier and will hurt less.'

'I bet it will,' Will murmured. 'I need to get my things
together.'

The American nodded, then they both followed him into
the room. 'Drop the cord,' the man said as soon as he saw
it in Will's hand and Will had no option but to do as he
said. When he was ready, he turned back to the Americans.

'This is what we're going to do,' he was told. 'We walk
on either side of you. I don't need to tell you what will
happen if you do anything that makes us even slightly
nervous. Don't try and check out - your room bill has
already been paid. There's a red Laguna waiting outside.

You get straight in it, using the back door on the sidewalk
side. We've got men in the lobby and men outside. We
know who you are and we're aware of your training. I
hope you'll believe us when we say that we've got every
exit covered.'

'Yeah,' Will said flatly. 'I believe you.' Inside he was cursing.

How the
hell
had they caught up with him? Nobody knew
he was here.
Nobody
. If he missed his meet, everything would
go tits up. But these guys were clearly CIA, they weren't going
to let him get away and he was in no fit state for heroics.

'Good. Let's go.'

It seemed to take forever as they walked silently down
the deserted hotel corridor to the lift and no one said a
word as they descended to the ground floor. Once they
were in the lobby, Will couldn't help his eyes glancing around
to see if he could spot the plain-clothes agents. He couldn't.
They were good.

His mind turned somersaults, desperately trying to think
of a way out of this. The clock was ticking and he couldn't
risk being late, but the CIA guys flanked him tightly and
there was no getting away. As soon as they were all in the
Laguna, the central-locking system shut down and the car
slipped into the traffic.

'Where are we going?'Will asked.

No answer.

They headed up towards the West End.

It took them ten minutes to reach their destination - plush,
gentrified Brook Street in Mayfair. They stopped and Will was
hustled out of the car. The building to which he was led
looked just the same as all the other houses, giving no indication
as to what went on there. Will did notice, however,
two guys hanging around in plain clothes, one a few metres
from the door, the other on the opposite side of the road.
No doubt there would be others. They approached the door
and one of the men pressed a buzzer by a small entry camera;
a few moments later they were buzzed in.

The inside of the building was a lot less gentrified than
the outside. A bland, empty corridor gave on to a number
of closed doors and there was the antiseptic smell of whatever
bleach had been used to clean the shiny, vinyl floor.
'Care to tell me who I'm meeting with?'Will asked as they
crossed the threshold.

Neither man spoke, but one of them knocked on the
nearest door. It was swiftly opened and Will's two guards
stepped aside to let him in.

The man waiting for him was a good deal older than
Will - mid-sixties, perhaps. He had a thick head of greying
hair and a ruddy complexion. There was a broad, friendly
smile on his face. 'Good morning,' he greeted Will as the
door was closed behind them, leaving the two of them
alone in the room.

Will nodded. 'Who are you?'

'Zack Levinson.' The man held out his hand. 'Don
Priestley's successor. I hope our boys weren't too rough with
you. It's the way they're trained, but I guess you know all
about that.'

Will felt his eyes narrowing and cautiously shook
Levinson's hand. 'Take a seat, please,' the American smiled
at him.

He sat in the armchair that Levinson indicated.

'Damn shame about Priestley,' the American said. 'He was
a good guy. I came up through the ranks with him.
Damn
good guy. 'Will noticed that Levinson stared straight at him
as he spoke, as if gauging his minutest reaction.

'I didn't know him that well,' he replied.

'No,' Levinson muttered. 'No, of course. Look, I'm sorry
about the two heavies bringing you in like that. Langley
are pretty keen for me to speak to you, find out exactly
what happened. Five are being a bit shifty about the whole
thing. Not that I blame them - always a bit of an embarrassment
to have a foreign agent killed on your own turf.'

'Faisal Ahmed was CIA trained,' Will reminded him.

Levinson held up his hands. 'Sure,' he said, mollifyingly.
'Sure. Don't get me wrong, Will. We're grateful to you for
bringing Ahmed down. When a guy like that goes haywire
there's no telling how it'll end. But it's always difficult to
lose one of your own.'

You don't have to tell
me
that, Will thought.

'There was just one thing, Will, that I wanted to ask
you. Our sources say that there were two guns at the scene
- one that killed Priestley, the other that shot you. 'Levinson
smiled, blandly. 'I'm sure there's an obvious explanation
for that - why Ahmed felt the need to put one of his
guns down, I mean.' His eyes remained locked on Will's.

Inside, Will's stomach was doing somersaults, but he did
his best to maintain a calm exterior. 'I disarmed him and
tried to take him alive,' he said. 'But he pulled another pistol
on me.'

'I see,' he replied. His smile grew a little broader. 'Forgive
me,' he said, 'but our reports from Don Priestley suggest
that your intention was always to shoot to kill.'

'I don't kill people when I don't have to,' Will replied,
quietly.

'No,' Levinson shook his head. 'No, of course not. What
I'm wondering, Will, is if you can throw any light on why
Ahmed targeted Priestley.'

'I'm afraid we didn't really get a chance to chat, Zack.
Awkward social situation and all that.'

Levinson nodded his head, slowly. He stood up and walked
to the window. 'Let me level with you, Will. We're worried
about Ahmed's sister. From what we've heard she was
roughed up pretty bad by the Taliban. The American government
would like to offer her sanctuary - a place to live, a
small pension. My superiors feel it's the least we can do.'
He turned to look at Will again. 'But we've no idea where
she is. Tell me, Will, do you think it's likely that she might
get in contact with you?'

'Not really.'

'We think otherwise, Will. You've done a lot for the
woman. Saved her life on more than one occasion. As far
as we can tell, she doesn't know anyone else in the country.
If I were a betting man, Will, I'd put a few dollars on you
hearing from her sometime pretty soon.'

'I killed her brother,' Will said, flatly.

'She doesn't know that,' the CIA man retorted. 'She
doesn't even know he's dead. This has all been kept on
the q.t.'

Will shrugged.

'So if she gets in contact with you, Will, you'll let us
know. Bring her to us. It'll be in her own best interest.'

'Sure,' Will replied. 'Anything else?'

Levinson shook his head. 'No. Not for now. You're free
to go.'

Will stood up.

'Oh, and Will?'

'Yeah?'

'Thank you. You did a brave thing going after Faisal
Ahmed. The world's a far better place without him.'

Will nodded curtly and left the room.

*

Zack Levinson watched Jackson leave. The moment the
door was shut he picked up the phone and dialled through
to Langley. 'It's Zack Levinson in London,' he told the
switchboard. 'The DCIA's expecting my call.'