Sleeper Cell (32 page)

‘And I’m just a lawyer. My only contact has been with Raha Golzar. She is a US citizen who has been held for fifteen months without trial in a mental facility, without consular representation, without any recourse to the law whatever. My role was nothing more than to give her that representation. She escaped. What’s more, she escaped as a result of a secret deal done between your Prime Minister and the unrecognised government of the West Bank. Even the UN wouldn’t dare get involved. It’s over, Miss Reid.’

Aquila started the car. Leila waited, her finger curled around the Glock’s trigger. The car was low on fuel, and yet it sat low on those skinny tyres… It had moved when Aquila raised his gun to her head, but there was not the slightest breeze. And then there had been that smell of hospitals hanging just beneath the pine-fresh odour of a valetted car.

I told you, she’s close… Aquila had said.

The Lexus pulled away slowly. It did have diplomatic plates; she couldn’t shoot the driver.

But she could shoot the passenger.

As the car began to speed up, Leila levelled her weapon and squeezed the trigger. A single shot pierced the back of the car just below the boot catch. Aquila stopped and slammed the car into reverse. She shot again; the boot sprang open. The car swung round into a j-turn and as it was side on to her, she loosed the remaining eight bullets from the gun.

Aquila floored the accelerator and drove right at her. For a long moment she stared at him through the windscreen. She smiled.

Just feet from impact, Aquila turned away and screeched around in a tight arc. He drove away with the engine screaming, an arm hanging over the lip of the Lexus’s boot.

She had got eight bullets right on target. The back end of the car was riddled with holes.

She walked a few feet and crouched on the dark tarmac. She dialled Lawrence’s number.

‘Leila?’ he said.

‘She was in the boot.’

‘You found her?’ Lawrence said.

‘She was in the boot, Michael. It’s why we waited here so long: Black Eagle were joining us from Mapleton, then they’d fly out. The jet’s waiting; Golzar was in the car all the time. She’s dead.’

‘Then we won, Leila.’

‘We haven’t won anything! We don’t know any more about Black Eagle than we did three days ago. Who’s to say that’s really even their name? Everything they’ve done, every action has been covered from all angles. We’ve got nothing!’

‘We’ll find them. We know what we’re looking for now, and Golzar’s death will slow their spread into new territories, let us catch up.’

‘These people have cells throughout the western world. They’re everywhere…’

‘Stay there, Leila. I’ve got a car on the way to pick you up.’

‘No. Don’t come.’

‘Leila…?

She stared out across the runway.

‘What are you planning?’ he said. ‘Don’t do this… We consolidate what we’ve got, and then… then we move on.’

‘Three days ago you asked me to take a look and see if I felt anything,’ she said. ‘I don’t. I can’t do this, not your way. All this, and we’ve solved nothing… I’m done.
We’re
done.’

‘Stay there…’

‘Look after Phillip, Michael.’ She ended the call and dropped the phone onto the runway.

The first rays of sun were just turning the eastern sky red as she walked across the wet grass and away.

First published in England, 2015 by Eyelevel Books

www.eyelevelbooks.co.uk

© Alan Porter 2015

Cover image: Aleksander Mijatovic

an ebook original

also available as a paperback, ISBN 9781902528793

All characters are fictional and any resemblance to real people is coincidental. Where real locations and organisations are mentioned, events which take place by or in them are entirely fictional.

All rights reserved

Also by Alan Porter

Adult fiction

Firestorm: Descent (2012)

Run (2013)

GM (2014)

Young adult fiction

Midwinter Lucie (2008)

The Black Pear (2009)

The House of One Room (2015) (with Sol Gudrun)