Firefight (26 page)

As Faisal Ahmed spoke, Will's mind spun around in circles.
He did not want to believe it; he didn't want to believe
anything that came from this man's mouth. Yet Will couldn't
for the life of him understand why Ahmed would feel the
need for this sudden confession and he couldn't shake off
the sensation that pieces of a jigsaw were fitting together.

Yet there were still anomalies. Things that didn't make
sense. 'There are other sources,' Will said. 'Independent
sources from abroad. They all say the same thing: that you're
planning a major terrorist strike.'

Ahmed looked contemptuous. 'More intelligence?' he
asked. 'Tell me, was this so-called intelligence by any chance
extorted from extremist sympathisers? Were they taken to
an American black camp to have information tortured out
of them?'

Will didn't reply.

'It's how they work,' Ahmed continued. 'The CIA leak
information to unsuspecting sympathisers; they then extract
it under duress from their victim in front of their British
allies. Even the source doesn't know he's misleading his
interrogators - he thinks he's having the information coerced
out of him. Trust me, they've been doing this for years. I
know, because they taught me how to do it. And whatever
you have been told about me instigating a major civilian
terrorist strike is a lie. I have turned my back on it. My
plan is much more simple.'

'What do you mean?'

'I intend to stop Donald Priestley and the Americans
from continuing their policy of death.'

'How?'

Ahmed didn't answer.

'Where's Latifa?'Will pressed.

Ahmed shook his head. 'Latifa is no longer your concern.
Nor am I. I don't expect you to take my word for everything,
but I'm sure when you confront Priestley you will
see that I am telling the truth. No doubt you have been
taught, as have I, to tell when somebody is lying.' He made
a flicking gesture with his gun. 'Turn around,' he said. 'And
walk away.'

Will didn't move. Ahmed's face became suddenly more
ruthless.

'I mean it, soldier,' he said. 'Move away or I'll shoot.'

'Not yet,' Will whispered. 'There's part of your story that
you left out.'

'What are you talking about?'

'Operation Firefight, or whatever the hell you want to
call it, wasn't entirely without casualties, was it? What about
the bomb in Knightsbridge? Outside the department store?
The one that killed a woman and her daughter?'

Ahmed's face remained stony. 'A mistake,' he said, flatly.
'An extremely unfortunate one. The device was not meant
to explode in that location. It wasn't part of my plan.'

'I don't care if it was part of your plan or not, Ahmed,'
Will whispered. 'The people who died that day were my
wife and daughter, and
you
killed them.'

Faisal Ahmed's eyes widened slightly as some of his smug
omniscience seemed to be knocked out of him.

'You might as well kill me now, Ahmed, because I swear
to God I couldn't give a shit what excuses and lies you
throw in my path. You murdered my family and I will not
rest until I've avenged them. I will not rest until you are
dead, just like them.'

'I am sorry for your loss, Will Jackson,' Ahmed said. 'Truly
sorry. I know what it is to lose one's family. But you would
be wise, my friend, not to follow this course. I think it has
been shown that
I
am the better soldier. That
I
have the better
mind. And anyway, if you kill me, another person will take
my place. Is it not better to target the real criminal behind
this? That is what I intend to do and you would be well
advised to leave me alone to do it.'

He raised the laser sight to Will's head once again.

'Turn around,' he repeated, 'and walk away.'

The eyes of the two men were locked. For a moment
Will considered disobedience, but a stronger instinct kicked
in. Faisal Ahmed had already shot two people tonight; he
wouldn't hesitate to make it a third. And if that happened,
he would never pay for what he did to Will's family.

In an instant, Will drank in every feature of Ahmed's face.
He wanted to be sure that he would recognise it again
without even thinking. Then, slowly, he turned his back on
the Afghan and started walking.

One pace.

Two paces.

Three paces.

He was several metres away when he heard Ahmed's voice
again. More distant this time, but with a strange sense of
urgency.

'Make no mistake about it,' Faisal Ahmed called. 'I have
no quarrel with you. But if you interfere with what I
have to do, it is
I
who will kill
you
.'

Will stopped, then turned. The path ahead of him disappeared
into the darkness.

Faisal Ahmed was nowhere to be seen.

The sun rose upon the country house and upon the dead
bodies of Mark Drew and Nathan Kennedy.

There was no way Will could ever recount the precise
number of dead bodies he had seen in his life. Hundreds,
certainly. Like an abattoir worker, he had become used to
corpses and the sight of horrific wounds did not make him
shudder as they might other people. Death had been his
job for most of his adult life.

But some deaths were different. He had only been flung
together with Drew and Kennedy a few days ago, but he
realised, as he sat there with them, that they had formed a
bond - a bond that had been shattered by Faisal Ahmed.

Deaths, he knew, were easier to take when you had
someone to blame. Back in his Regiment days, blame had
been an easy thing to dish out. It was them and us. Black
and white. Clear cut. And someone to blame, he realised
as he sat amid the devastation of the room, was what he
had been seeking when he agreed to go after Faisal Ahmed
in the first place. In the two years following his family's
death, he had been wandering in the dark, not knowing
why it had happened or whom to blame. And then he had
learned about Ahmed. It was as if he had been given the
final piece of a jigsaw and all he had to do was slot it in
place.

Now though, things had changed. He had come face to
face with his family's killer. And though he did not loathe
Ahmed any less, if what the man had told him was true
the apportionment of blame was not so simple.

Who was to blame for the death of his wife and child?
Faisal Ahmed and his bomb that went wrong? Or Donald
Priestley and the CIA?
Sometimes you have to fight fire with
fire
.Will had been in enough situations where that was true;
but there were limits and Operation Firefight - if it even
existed - went far beyond those limits.

And what of Drew and Kennedy? Who was to blame
for their deaths? Ahmed? Priestley? Or Will himself, for
bringing them into this situation, then being outwitted by
the man they were intending to capture? The idea made
him bang his fist against the wall in frustration. Jesus, he
thought to himself. Why the hell does everyone around
me seem to end up dead?

Faisal Ahmed, of course, would blame Priestley. Priestley
would blame Faisal Ahmed. Nobody took responsibility for
their actions. And so the memory of the dead was abused,
trampled upon, forgotten.

In the last few hours, the world had grown more complicated.
What was more, Will couldn't shake the feeling that
the dead around him were waiting for his response.

The mobile phone attached to the laptop rang, making
him jump. It could only be one person - Pankhurst. No
one else knew the number. And if Will didn't reply, the DG
would know something was up - this place would be
crawling with spooks before he knew it. But Will needed
to get his head straight, to work out his next move, and he
couldn't do it here. He grabbed a sturdy bag from their
stores, then filled it up with equipment. The NV binoculars,
grenades, ammo and, of course, weaponry. Almost as
an afterthought he grabbed the ephedrine tablets. God
knows when he was going to get a chance to sleep again.
He nodded, briefly, at the lifeless bodies of Drew and
Kennedy, then walked out of the room. As he did so, he
thought he heard Kennedy's voice.
Get the fucker for me,
Jackson
, it said.
Get the fucker
.

Will headed through the forest. He moved quickly,
running uphill not so much out of a sense of urgency as
because he wanted to feel his body receiving a bit of punishment.
It seemed only fair, after all. Soon he was at the top
of the Downs. It was still too early for anyone else to be
up there, and he was glad of the solitude. Looking down,
he saw the sprawl of the nearest provincial town. He knew
there was a railway station, so he started jogging downhill.

It was nearly eight o'clock by the time he got to the
platform for the train to Waterloo. He wondered if they
had found Drew and Kennedy's bodies by now; if so, they
would know it was a possibility that he himself had bought
it, given that he hadn't been in touch. That suited him. It
gave him a bit of time.

From Waterloo he crossed London to Paddington. He
stowed his bag in a left-luggage locker, then hit the streets
to find some scran. Sitting in a café waiting for his food, a
cup of hot, sweet coffee in front of him, he tried to get
his head straight.

It seemed like an age ago that Pankhurst had interrupted
Will's morning visit to Laura and little Anna. So much had
happened. Will felt a surge of guilt as he remembered the
random night of lust he had spent with Kate, the journalist
from the pub; and he realised that, out there in the freezing
wilds of Afghanistan, for the first time in two years Laura and
Anna had not been the first thing on his mind. The
only
thing
on his mind. He suppressed an urge to go back to Hereford,
to the grave, and apologise. Apologising to the dead was
useless, he thought to himself as his breakfast arrived. Anderson,
Drew and Kennedy wouldn't expect an apology. They would
expect him to go out there and do the right thing.

But sometimes it was difficult to know what the right
thing was.

With a pang, Will felt Laura's absence more keenly than
he had done in months. She was good at things like this,
at seeing to the heart of the matter. At putting Will on the
right track. What would she urge him to do? To hunt down
Faisal Ahmed and seek revenge on her account? Or to do
as the Afghan had said? Ahmed's words rang in his ears.
If
you kill me, another person will take my place. Is it not better to
target the real criminal behind this?

Will shook his head. He couldn't do it. He couldn't let
Ahmed walk free. And yet, if what he had told him was
correct, Ahmed was not the only one to blame for Laura
and Anna's deaths or for the deaths of the SAS soldiers he
had led on this mission. Donald Priestley was complicit, at
least as much a murderer as Faisal Ahmed.

As these thoughts chased each other in circles around
Will's head, he heard Laura's voice chiming in his mind, as
clearly as if she were standing there with him.

Be sure, Will
, it said.
Do what you have to do, but be sure of
everything before you act
.

Will blinked. In an instant, the confusion that had shrouded
him since the previous night disappeared, like mist burned
away by the sun. His mind was suddenly clear. The way
forward was obvious.

He tucked into his food, suddenly content in the knowledge
that he knew what he was going to do. Content in
the knowledge that he had a plan.

All he had to do was put it into action.

*

Lowther Pankhurst looked up from his desk to see Don
Priestley storm through the door.

'It's customary to knock, Don,' he said, mildly.

'It's customary not to fuck up, Lowther,' the American
practically shouted, his voice loaded with sarcasm.

The call had come in several hours ago. Two of the
SAS team dead, Latifa Ahmed missing and no word from
Will Jackson. The surrounding area was being searched,
but they were presuming that he had been taken hostage
or was dead - there was no other reason for the radio
silence from him. Since hearing the news, Pankhurst's day
had got progressively worse and having the usually calm
Don Priestley yelling at him wasn't making it any better.

'Don't you British get it? Don't you understand what
this guy is capable of?'

'I think we have a pretty
good
idea what he's capable of,
Don. 'He handed the fuming CIA boss a sheaf of A4 photographs.
'Your boys trained him pretty well.' The pictures
showed the scene of devastation at the country house, along
with gruesome, bloody close-ups of the dead men. The
room resembled a battlefield. Priestley examined them for
a moment before looking back at Pankhurst.

'Two bodies,' the American noted. 'What about your third
guy?'

'Missing,' Pankhurst replied.

It was a strange thing, but as he spoke Pankhurst couldn't
help but notice a flicker of edginess pass over Priestley's
face, as though what he had just said was not what he
wanted to hear. 'Missing?'

'We haven't found a body yet, but Will Jackson hasn't
made contact. He's either dead or taken hostage.'

Priestley nodded his head, slowly. 'Of course,' he said. 'Of
course. Look, Lowther, I apologise for just now—'

'No apology required, Don,' Pankhurst replied, politely,
though he could sense that there was a hint of wariness in
his own voice. 'It's a stressful situation for all of us. The
Prime Minister has been informed and he's called a meeting
of COBRA.We're working on the assumption that when
Faisal Ahmed finds out what we did to his sister it will only
spur him on. The city's on high alert. We might not be able
to prevent what's coming, but perhaps we can limit the
casualties.'

Priestley's eyes narrowed slightly. 'You'll let me know if
you find Jackson's body, Lowther?'

Pankhurst looked at his CIA counterpart. There was no
doubt about it. Priestley was edgy.

'Of course I will, Don,' he replied. 'Of course I will.'

*

Will bought a change of clothes in a nearby department
store, then took a tube to North London. He knew where
he was going, but he had to trust to chance that she would
be in. There was no one else he felt he could trust and right
now he needed help more than anything else. He found he
could navigate to the terraced house almost on autopilot,
and at 10 a.m. he was ringing the buzzer for the upstairs flat.

No answer. 'Shit,' he muttered under his breath, and
continued walking down the street.

Every hour, on the hour, he tried the doorbell. No luck.
'She'll be at work,' a neighbour told him at midday. Will
nodded gruffly, put his head down and walked away.

Come nightfall, he took up position at the corner of the
street. It was just after eight o'clock that a black cab pulled
up in front of the door. Will waited for the familiar figure
to pay the driver and let herself into the flat before he
approached again and rang the bell.

'Hello?'

Kate's voice sounded confused over the intercom, as though
she was not used to receiving visitors at this time of night.

'It's me. Will.'

A pause. And then, almost kitten-like, 'Hello, Will.' The
door buzzed and he pushed it open. He saw Kate waiting
at the top of the stairs. 'You're an international man of
mystery,' she giggled as he approached and Will wondered
if she'd had a couple of drinks. 'I thought you'd swanned
out of my life, never to return.'

'I'm full of surprises,' he replied. Now that he was standing
in front of her, he could smell alcohol on her breath. She
wasn't too far gone, just mellow. She needed her wits about
her if she was going to do what he intended to ask her, so
that meant waiting till morning.

'Aren't you though?' She stepped aside to let him in.
'Glass of wine?'

'Thanks,' Will said. He watched as her attractive figure
sashayed into the kitchen where she filled him a large glass
of chilled white, then handed it to him with a look that
would have been mysterious if Will hadn't seen it before.
In this new world of uncertainties one thing at least was
clear: he wouldn't be sleeping alone tonight. He took a sip
and closed his eyes as he felt the alcohol hit his chest, then
spread its relaxing tendrils through his body. For one night,
at least, no one knew where he was; he could do nothing
until the morning; he could try and forget about it all. He
finished his glass of wine quickly and it was swiftly replenished
by Kate, but he never got a chance to finish it. Only
two gulps in, she was pulling him meaningfully towards her
and pressing her lips against his. Will offered no resistance.

It was a serious kind of kiss and when it was over he
pushed her gently on to the sofa. She fell elegantly and
looked up at him with a seductive smile. 'You know what?'
she breathed. 'You've really made my evening.'

'Mine too,' Will replied, feeling the almost unbearable
stresses of the last few days slip momentarily away. 'Mine too.'

They made love into the small hours and after that Will
slept soundly. He awoke with the daylight to find Kate
sitting up, a sheet wrapped around her. She was staring
intently at him, her dark hair falling appealingly over the
side of her face. Will smiled up at her.

'Where've you been?' she asked.

'Here and there,' he replied, evasively.

'You're not going to tell me.'

'I can't. There's lots of reasons why.'

'OK,' she said. 'If you won't tell me that, then tell me
why you left the SAS.'

Will blinked. 'How did you—?'

'I'm a journalist, Will. It's what I do.'

'And do you do background research on all your one-night
stands?'

'I'm not cheap,' Kate said suddenly, earnestly. 'I don't
normally—'

Before she could finish, Will had raised his hand and
gently put his forefinger against her lips. 'I know,' he said.

Kate nodded and Will had the impression she was glad
to have got that off her chest. 'Why have you come back?'
she asked, quietly.

'To see you.'

'You're a charmer, Will. But what's the real reason?'

Will took a deep breath. She was sharp. 'I need you to
do something for me.'

Kate looked at him archly. 'I did quite a lot of things for
you last night.'

He smiled. 'This is a bit different. I want you to make a
phone call. I'd make it myself, but the people I need to get
in touch with would recognise my voice and I can't let that
happen.'

She looked at him seriously. 'Why not? Who am I phoning?'

'His name is Donald Priestley. He works for the CIA in
London.'

Kate narrowed her eyes. 'Is this a wind-up, Will?'