Firefight (5 page)

Priestley smiled.

'I don't think he was afraid of that, Will. Despite what
you might think, the US government
would
have looked
after him. We're not as bad as some people make us out to
be, you know. No, that wasn't the reason. The reason was
that we couldn't tell him who it was that blew his cover.
He knew that coming back into the US under CIA protection
would be a death warrant. And so he decided to go
to the UK - somewhere he could be anonymous.
Somewhere he could be safe.'

'Don't give me that,' Will sneered. 'I bet you stopped
paying him once he was no use to you.'

'We didn't have to continue paying him, Will,' Priestley
continued, 'because our British counterparts took over that
job.' He glanced over in Pankhurst's direction.

The director had been sitting in his chair, fingers pressed
together, and a look of concentration on his face as Priestley's
story had unfolded. Now, though, he stood up, walked to
the front of his desk and perched on the edge. 'Faisal Ahmed,'
he explained, 'was a unique asset for us. We were very
grateful to the CIA for allowing us to make use of him.'

'He wanted to carry on working?' Will asked. 'After
everything he'd been through?'

Pankhurst looked Will straight in the eye. 'What else could
he do, Will?' the director asked. 'He was intelligent enough
to know that if a military man stops his career before the
time is right, he risks wasting away into nothing.'

Will looked down awkwardly as Pankhurst continued.

'Ahmed was a stranger in a strange land. He had been a
fighter from the age of ten, a trained spy from the age of
sixteen. Now he was in his early thirties. I hardly think he
could have been expected to go and work in a supermarket,
do you? We gave him work to do. We made him feel useful.
On his arrival in England he was given a new identity and
a place to live in an area of London known to be a hotbed
of fundamentalism. It wasn't long before he had infiltrated
a number of terrorist cells and was using his considerable
skills to tip us off about their activities. Faisal Ahmed warned
us about any number of potential terrorist strikes all over
the country and we were able to prevent them. He worked
with us for three years and in that time I estimate that he
put a stop to ten major terrorist operations.

'But then, in 2003, he went dark. Vanished completely.'

Pankhurst stood up and walked over to the window. 'It's
pretty hard to vanish in this country when MI5 really want
to find you, Will. But as you've heard, Ahmed was well trained.'

'Maybe he left the country,' Will suggested.

'That's just what we thought, at first. Until intelligence
started coming in that a person matching his description
was involved in masterminding a series of low-level terrorist
strikes like the ones I just showed you.'

'The Glasgow Airport bombing?'

'Among others. The intelligence was sound and we know
Ahmed was involved. We even discovered where he had
been staying on a couple of occasions - bedsits, usually, on
the outskirts of satellite towns around the UK, the sort of
places anyone could merge into the background with ease.
But every time we closed in on him, he had always disappeared.
At first we cursed our bad luck, and of course
the excellent training the CIA had given him.' He smiled
somewhat ruefully at Priestley, who affected a look of false
modesty. 'But soon it became clear that there was more to
it than that. Ahmed was being tipped off and it could only
be by someone in the security services.'

'Five's got a mole, you mean?' Will asked directly.

'Yes, Will,' Pankhurst said calmly. 'Five's got a mole. Like
Don says, it's hardly a great surprise - we expect this sort
of thing from time to time. But it means we are extremely
compromised in our search for Ahmed.'

'Why do you think he went dark?' Will asked.

'We don't know,' Pankhurst admitted. 'Not for sure. But
we can hazard a guess. The last contact we had was in February
2003, about three weeks before the invasion of Iraq. You
don't have to be a political scientist to know how unpopular
that little move was, even among ordinary white Britons
and Americans. But obviously it was also very unpopular
among moderate Muslims in both countries. We can only
surmise that Ahmed objected to the invasion on some ideological
level and that caused him to change his allegiance.'

'He's a strangely principled man,' Priestley interjected,
'and if you think about it, it makes a certain amount of
sense. When the US invaded Afghanistan after 9/11, there
were sound reasons for doing it, not least that the Taliban
were most likely giving Bin Laden refuge. But Iraq? That
was political, cynical - at least, that's what plenty of people
thought.'

'Anyway,' Pankhurst continued, 'whatever the reason, the
first terrorist attack that we know Ahmed was involved in
occurred about two months after the invasion of Baghdad
and they've been going on ever since. With a few exceptions,
nobody has been hurt in any of his attacks - it's
almost as though they've been warning shots, as if he's
letting us know that he's still around and that he's -'
Pankhurst seemed to be struggling to find the word.

'Pissed,' Priestley supplied helpfully in his American drawl.

'Quite,' Pankhurst muttered. 'Recently, however, there has
been a development.'

'What sort of development?' Will asked.

Pankhurst sniffed. 'A significant one,' he said flatly. 'We've
been picking up a lot of intelligence chatter about Ahmed
- nothing concrete, but it was clear something was in the
offing.' He narrowed his eyes. 'You are aware, I suppose, of
the existence of what certain people have taken to calling
"black camps"?'

'Yeah,' Will said slowly. He had heard the rumours of
course - that there were places outside the legal jurisdiction
of America and Britain where suspects were taken to
be interrogated in ways that were illegal in more civilised
countries. Places they could be tortured without there being
any comeback. Places you didn't want to end up.

'Well, we got lucky with one of our leads. A joint British
and American operation apprehended a young Pakistani
student in Rome three days ago. He was taken to a black
camp and -' again Pankhurst seemed to search for the right
word, '- persuaded to reveal everything he knew about,
well, everything. He informed us that Faisal Ahmed is planning
a terrorist strike against London some time in the next
three weeks. Something major. We bled our informant dry,
but that was all he could tell us. We don't know where it's
going to happen and we don't know when. All we know
is, it
will
happen.'

Pankhurst's stark prediction seemed to echo around the
room. The two men stared at Will for a while without saying
anything.

'Well, I don't know what you think I can do about it,' he
said in an attempt to break the uncomfortable silence.

The two men remained expressionless. The American
turned again to look out of the window. 'I was in New
York on 9/11,Will,' he said quietly. 'I've never seen such
horror. I've never seen fear like that in anybody's eyes. But
you know what? Compared to Faisal Ahmed, the men who
plotted and carried out that attack were amateurs. Ahmed's
the best there is - if he wanted a major strike on London,
he has the capability to make it the most horrific act of
violence we've ever seen.'

'Fine,' Will replied. 'I still don't see where I come in.' He
was getting impatient now and wanted to leave. His eyes
flickered over to the door and he wondered what would
happen if he just walked out.

'You come in, Will,' Pankhurst said quietly,'because you've
been out of service for the last two years.'

Will blinked. 'What are you talking about? That makes
no sense at all.'

'I told you, Will. We have a mole. We don't know who it
is and we don't know where it is. Most importantly, we don't
know how far their influence extends. You, however -'
Pankhurst gave him a thin smile. 'As far as we can tell, you've
had no contact with the military or with the authorities since
you retired two years ago. We've been watching you for a
while, Will, and it seems your longest conversations have been
with the gentleman round the corner who runs the off-licence.'

Instantly Will stood up. 'For fuck's sake,' he muttered. 'I
don't have to listen to this shit.'

He made for the door.

'I apologise, Will,' Pankhurst announced. 'That was
uncalled for. Please, sit down and hear me out.'

Will stopped in his tracks. He found that he was shaking,
but at least his brain hadn't turned to jelly. He knew
Pankhurst was going to finish saying what he had to say -
if Will walked out before that happened, chances were that
he'd only be dragged in again, and probably a lot less politely
than last time. A frown wrinkled on his forehead as he
turned and sat down again.

'Thank you, Will,' Pankhurst said quietly, and for a moment
Will thought he sounded genuinely grateful. 'The truth is,
we need you. We need someone clean and we need someone
we think might just be a match for Ahmed and for the
operation we have in mind. We don't have many options,
Will. We don't have
any
options, apart from you.'

'I'll level with you, Will,' Priestley continued. 'I wanted
to put one of our boys on this job. But then Lowther
showed me your file and even I've got to admit it's impressive.
You've fought your way out of some pretty nasty
corners.'

'Yeah, well that was a long time ago. If you've read my
file closely enough, you'll see that I've got more reason to
hate terrorists than most. But there's nothing I can do about
it. Not now. I've been out of it for too long.'

'I don't think that's true, Will,' Pankhurst said. 'I saw the
way you dealt with my people this morning.'

Will shrugged. 'Whatever,' he said. 'I'm not interested.
You can find someone else and that's my last word. Now
if there's nothing else, I'd like to go.'

'Actually,' Pankhurst said a bit too quickly, 'there is something
else.' He exchanged a worried glance with his CIA
counterpart, then took a deep breath. 'There's one other
thing I haven't told you.'

Will's eyes narrowed. 'What?' he demanded.

'I mentioned that Ahmed's bombing campaign had practically
no casualties, that they were like warning shots.'

'Yeah?'

'There was one exception. Two exceptions, actually. 'The
director looked piercingly at him and as he spoke Will felt
a sickness in his stomach and a hot surge of adrenaline.
Pankhurst took another A4 photograph from the sheaf and
held it lightly in his fingertips. 'It was two years ago,' he
said, his voice flat. 'A bomb outside a department store in
Knightsbridge. Two casualties, both female, a mother and
daughter.'

He handed the photograph to Will. Drawn to it like a
bystander to an accident, he looked at the image. He knew
it well, of course. It had haunted his dreams for months on
end. He recognised the curve of the woman's back as she
wrapped herself around her dead child. He recognised the
way the little girl's long, honey hair was spattered over her
bloodstained face.

His hand started to shake even more.

'I'm sorry to have to tell you this way,' Pankhurst
continued, relentlessly. 'But you need to know. Faisal Ahmed
killed your family, Will. And now you're the only one who
can do anything about it.'

The room seemed to spin.

Will was barely aware of the other two men as they stood
there, watching him intently, checking to see what his reaction
would be. The photo in his hand seemed to fill all his
senses, to bring back all the grief like a sharp shard of glass
slicing right through him. He found that he was biting on
his lower lip, so hard that he could taste the hot, metallic
flavour of his own blood, and without a word he stood up.
The picture fell to the floor as he did so, but Will didn't
bother to pick it up. He had no need of a photographic
reminder of that scene. It was etched on his brain and would
be until the day he died.

'You bastards,' he whispered.

The two men remained silent.

'
You fucking bastards!
' he shouted. 'Why didn't I know
about this before?'

'It wasn't necessary, Will,' Pankhurst replied calmly.

'
I'll decide what's fucking necessary!
' he yelled. 'They were
my
family. Not a couple of pawns in your fucking game.'
His body was shaking now and he felt violent. He wanted
to hit them, to make them feel his pain; but something
stopped him, paralysed him. He looked from one to the
other and their blank gazes infuriated him even more. In
the end, he simply turned and left the office, slamming the
door. Neither Pankhurst nor Priestley tried to stop him.

His blood running hot in his veins, Will half-walked,
half-ran through the corridors of Thames House. He didn't
wait for a lift to get to the ground floor; instead he used
the stairs, taking in several steps at a time. It felt better that
way, as though he were putting distance between himself
and the information he had just learned. People turned to
look at him as he tore past them and at the exit two security
guards stood in his way, clearly suspicious of him. He
barged through them and out into the streets.

It was cold out. Icy cold. Will drew several deep, shaky
breaths and relished the feeling of the freezing air piercing
his lungs like an icicle. He looked around him, then hurried
down the road and randomly round a corner, soon finding
himself lost in the area around the back of Millbank. He
knew what he was looking for and it wasn't long before
he found one.

As he entered the Morpeth Arms, a warm fug of air hit
him; but the sensation gave him no comfort like it once
did. He was in here for a reason. He approached the deserted
bar and beckoned the bored-looking barmaid. 'Vodka,' he
told her. 'Double. No ice.'

The first drink warmed him up slightly, but it didn't calm
him. Nor did the second. Only when he had downed three
large vodkas in quick succession did he even begin to feel
remotely soothed after the shock he had just received; and
it was only after the fourth, handed to him by a now slightly
alarmed looking barmaid, that his hands stopped shaking.

It was all too much to process. In the past hour he had
been forced to relive his family's murder; he had looked
upon the face of their killer; and he had been handed the
opportunity to seek retribution.

But retribution wasn't what he wanted. It wasn't what
he needed. He needed oblivion.

He ordered himself a pint and set about trying to forget.

*

Don Priestley looked at the Director General of MI5.'That
was a shitty thing to have to do, Lowther,' he said.

Pankhurst shrugged, as if what had just occurred had
barely affected him. 'Nothing like as bad as what will happen
if we don't get our hands on Ahmed. We can't have another
9/11, Don. London won't tolerate it. I won't let it happen.'

'You really think this guy is our best bet?'

'I've done my homework, Don. I've spoken to people,
asked around. When Will Jackson was in the SAS, he had
a reputation. He was the soldier everyone wanted. You've
seen the missions he's led - Iraq, Sudan, crucially Afghanistan.
You've heard of Gray Fox?'

'Yeah, thanks, Lowther. I've heard of Gray Fox. 'Of course
he had. Formerly known as the US Army Intelligence
Support Activity unit, Gray Fox was headed up by Delta
Force, but worked closely with the Seals, the SBS and the
SAS. And he'd read about Jackson's exploits with the unit
in Iraq. According to his file, they'd received intelligence
that a group of six suicide bombers were planning a hit in
Baghdad. Jackson had led a surveillance team, dressed up in
Arab gear, that had followed all six bombers back to a house
in the Iraqi capital and all the information they had pointed
to the likelihood that they would be strapping up and getting
ready to leave within the hour. Raiding the house would
have been a dangerous option, because all it would have
taken was one flick of a switch and both the bombers and
the Gray Fox team would have gone up like a bonfire. Yet
they couldn't risk letting them back out into the capital.

Jackson's solution had been high-risk. He and his team
had staked out the place, posting Regiment snipers all around
the house. If a single sniper had been compromised - a
distinct possibility in that hostile territory where, if just one
Iraqi passer-by had suspected something, the alarm would
have been raised - the bombers would have known they
were there. Moreover, the shooters had to hold their nerve
until all six bombers were out of the house and in their
sights.

Against the odds, Jackson's team had managed it, killing
all six men at the same time before they could warn each
other or go out and do their bloody work. They'd made a
little piece of SAS history that day. Priestley had heard that
even Delta Force had a grudging respect for the success of
the operation and that was like praise from Caesar.

But that was in the past and from what he had seen, Will
Jackson wasn't the same any more. 'Lowther,' Priestley said.
'I agree that back in the day he was the man. But now?
He's a mess. Has he got any fight left in him? Christ, I don't
blame the guy. Look what's happened to him. But you can't
put someone like that into the field of war. If you can't trust
any of your guys, why don't I just get Washington to send
Delta Force in?'

Pankhurst's lips went thin. 'You'll excuse me for pointing
out, I hope, Don, that the last time Delta Force and the
SAS were on active service in Afghanistan, it was the British
special forces who fared rather better.'

Priestley fell silent.

'Will Jackson was in Afghanistan in the summer of 2002,'
Pankhurst continued, implacably. 'He led a four-man unit
behind enemy lines and reconnoitred there for two weeks,
sending regular updates on al-Qaeda positions. The day he
was called back to base, the unit was spotted by two scouts,
who shot and badly wounded one of the unit. Will Jackson
hunted them down before they could report back, killed
them, hid their bodies where they wouldn't be found, then
single-handedly carried his wounded colleague back to base
in the midsummer heat. You might think he's a mess, but
he's skilled, well-trained, resourceful and - most importantly
- he has a reason to find Faisal Ahmed.'

Pankhurst let that sink in before continuing.

'He reacted to the news about his family much as we
thought he would. I'll concede I didn't expect him to walk
out, but I've had psychometric reports done by three of
our top analysts. He'll come round. He wants to find Ahmed
just as much as we do; he just doesn't know it yet. If I'm
wrong, you can bring in your people. You'll have my full
support. But I'm not wrong, Don. You'll see.'

Priestley looked unconvinced. 'I sure hope so, Lowther,'
he said with a sigh. 'I sure hope so.'

*

The afternoon passed in a blur of booze and self-loathing.
Will swallowed pint after pint, but the more he drank, the
more the images from the morning flashed before his eyes.
His wife and daughter, cold, dead. Faisal Ahmed, his unfeeling
eyes staring confidently out. Part of Will wanted to hunt
the guy down, to look him in the face, then put a bullet
in his head. But another part of him - the greater part -
wanted to run away back to Hereford. Back to the graveyard,
where he could weep and be alone with his grief.

The pub started to fill up. He was on his fifth pint - or
was it his sixth? - when he noticed the woman who had
taken the bar stool next to him. She wore a smart grey
business suit, had a drink in front of her and was toying
nervously with a cigarette.

'Bloody smoking ban,' she smiled at him.

Will grunted and took another sip from his pint.

'Just been stood-up,' she said, before adding, rather quickly,
'Not by a boyfriend. I was meant to be interviewing
someone. I'm a journalist.'

'Right,' Will replied, a bit ungraciously.

She smiled at him again. A pretty smile. 'I'm Catherine,
by the way,' she blurted out. 'Kate. My friends call me Kate.'
Her hair, Will noticed, was cut into an attractive brown bob
and it flickered appealingly over her cheek as she put her
head to one side. Nice, but his instinct was to keep himself
to himself. It was almost inbuilt in him to be immediately
suspicious of anyone talking to him without a reason.

'Look,' he said, 'I don't want to sound rude, but I've had
a bit of a weird day and I don't really feel like shooting
the shit.' He gulped at his drink.

'Weird day?' Kate gabbled. 'Tell me about it. I woke up
this morning, and -' She faltered. 'It's no good,' she said.
'I've got to have a cigarette. Fancy one?'

Will looked at the packet of fags on the bar. He hadn't
smoked for years, but all of a sudden he found he had a
craving for it. 'Yeah, all right,' he murmured.

A small smile of satisfaction flickered over Kate's face and
it didn't go unnoticed by Will. She put her coat on and he
escorted her to the door.

They stood outside in silence, tobacco fumes billowing from
their nostrils in great clouds. Kate stamped her feet against
the cold and she finished her cigarette long before Will. They
were just turning to go inside when there was a shout. The
alcohol had made him woozy, and Will didn't catch what it
was, but he certainly understood its implication. Before he
knew it, three men in their twenties - brash young city types,
clearly drunk, still wearing their suits, but with their ties loosened
as much as their tongues - were jostling around Kate,
laughing lewdly. All the confidence Kate had shown in the
pub seemed to disappear, and she shrank away.

Will acted almost instinctively. He stepped in front of
Kate, putting his bulk between her and the three men.

'Leave her alone, lads,' he told them.

The men looked at her and laughed. 'Who are you?' one
of them goaded him. 'Her pimp?' The three of them creased
with laughter once more, just as the repressed anger Will
had been feeling all afternoon welled up in him.

The man who had insulted him didn't even see Will's fist
as it flew through the air with such speed and force. But
he knew when he had been hit. His cheek cracked and his
nose exploded in a shower of blood. He hit the ground
with a thump.

'Jesus, you fucking psycho!' one of his friends exclaimed
as they bent down to see if he was OK. 'What the hell did
you do that for?'

Will looked at the smear of blood on his fist, disgusted
with himself for having lost his temper so easily. It was the
drink, he told himself. He wanted, more than anything, to
be away from this place, but he couldn't leave the girl.

Will kneeled down and grabbed the man who was looking
after his friend by the scruff of the neck. 'Take your mate,'
he whispered threateningly, 'and fuck off out of it.'

The man gave him a hateful look, but he nodded his
head, picked up his friend, who was still bleeding profusely
from the nose, and the three of them hurried away.

My God, Will thought to himself. Has it come to this?
Roughing up drunken yuppies on the streets of London.
The ex-SAS man felt sick with himself and all of a sudden
the alcohol-induced wooziness returned. He turned to Kate,
who had a shocked expression on her face. 'I'm sorry,' he
said. 'I'd better go.' He plunged his hands into his pockets
and walked down the street. If he got the right train, he
could be back in Hereford in a couple of hours.

'Wait!' Kate called. She fell in beside him, having to trot
in order to keep up. 'Look, er . . . thanks. For back there, I
mean.'

Will shrugged as he walked, then pulled out his hand
and looked indifferently at the other man's blood on his
skin.

'Oh my God!' Kate said. 'Are you all right? Are you hurt?'

'I'm fine.'

'No you're not,' she said decisively. 'Come on, you've got
to get cleaned up.' She tugged on his sleeve to slow him
down, then lifted her hand and hailed a black cab that was
passing. How it happened, Will didn't know - his mind was
still scrambled by the events of the day - but before he
knew it, he was being hustled into the back by this woman
he barely knew and twenty minutes later he was walking
up a narrow flight of stairs to her flat in North London.

It was warm and comfortable. Will waited in Kate's pristine
kitchen - such a far cry from his own - while she
found him dry towels and a dressing gown, before showing
him to the bathroom. He mumbled a few embarrassed words
of thanks, then closed the door, stripped off his dirty clothes
and turned on the shower. The water was hot and it felt
good as it seared his skin, washing away the blood and the
grime and the effects of the alcohol he had drunk. He
closed his eyes and allowed everything to wash over him.
Seemingly from nowhere, the words Pankhurst had spoken
flashed through his mind: 'If a military man stops his career
before the time is right, he risks wasting away into nothing.'
Was that what was happening to him? Was he becoming a
shadow of his former self? Was the old Will Jackson dead?
He found himself frowning at the thought. What would his
wife have said? 'Get yourself together, Will. Stop feeling
sorry for yourself.' He could almost hear her voice.