Fortress (23 page)

‘Well, is Stutz a good guy?’

‘He threw me a lifeline.’

‘How come?’

‘After Gabrielle left it was a bad time. I didn’t do too well on my own, and I craved excitement. I got into some arms trading, working cartels across the border: AR-15s, AKs, FN semi-automatics, M4s, M203 grenade launchers. I made a lot of money. But I knew that sooner or later the ATF were gonna catch up with me – it was just a matter of time. Stutz got me out of it.’

‘How did he do that?’

‘He has his connections.’

‘And in return?’

Kyle laughed to himself. ‘He says I was his inspiration.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Me and my kind. Our kind. Who did what we did but don’t like the outcome. Who trained and fought to protect this country, to secure our borders, to remove the threat. No one’s facing up to the fact that we failed. They sent us off to fight unwinnable wars. All the guys who were in Fallujah, the ones who got out. Now they see Al Qaeda back in town like it’s ’04 all over again. All that blood spilled – and for what? They’re mad as hell and they want something back for their sacrifice. Stutz wants to channel that anger, put it behind some proper action to protect the country. And know what? It goes all the way up the food chain. You saw the crowd tonight. Pentagon people, private operators, all players who want a better outcome.’

He reached across and gripped Tom’s shoulder, just as Stutz had done. ‘See? You’re far from alone, man. Help is at hand.’

Tom didn’t feel that he was in need of any help, but he went along with it. Kyle was on a roll: no point in distracting him.

‘In 2005, more people from Islamic countries became US residents than in any previous year: ninety-six thousand. 2009, the figure’s up to a hundred fifteen. We got a time bomb ticking.’ He crushed the can and helped himself to another.

Tom made sure he was drinking only half as fast. ‘How does Stutz plan to achieve his “outcome”?’

‘You saw Skip’s presentation. Stutz wants to deploy it to weed out the bad apples. That’s where he’s focused. Forget Afghanistan, forget Iraq, Syria. Protecting the
homeland
from what’s coming down the pipe. That’s what he’s all about.’

‘How’s that going to work?’

‘First you gotta convince people it’s worth believing in. Maybe scare them some. Show ’em why it’s gotta happen. And let me tell you another thing. Stutz has the network, the manpower. You want in?’

Tom tried to look thoughtful while he came up with an appropriate answer. Rolt had won some of his sympathy. But nothing he had seen of Stutz and Lederer made him want to get any closer to them.

Kyle was staring at him as if waiting for an answer. ‘You been fucked over. You wanna chance to fuck them back?’

‘You’re still not telling me what it involves.’

‘It ain’t that simple. To get to that level, we need an indication.’

Was this what Rolt had meant by ‘jumping through a few hoops’? He hadn’t counted on this.

‘What sort of “indication”?’

‘You made a good impression on Stutz, I’ll tell ya. He likes guys like us. Gets off on the whole Special Forces thing. And you can talk the talk, all right. But if Invicta wants his dollars it’s gonna take more than a few fancy words and a coupla handshakes.’ His eyes were sparkling with intrigue.

‘He needs to know how far he can trust you, how far you’re prepared to go.’

‘How’s that going to happen?’

Kyle grinned and poked himself in the chest. ‘I give him the word. But I gotta know where you stand first.’

Was this all bullshit – the self-important ramblings of a former elite soldier gone down in the world?

Kyle’s phone buzzed in his pocket. ‘I gotta take this.’ He got to his feet and moved a few yards away, glancing back as he spoke.

Tom processed what he had heard with a mixture of curiosity and distaste. Kyle was smart, he had trusted him, and he was utterly fearless: Kyle had risked his life to save him. What had changed? He was bitter and angry with the world and he had good reason to be. Was this what Tom could look forward to – now he was out of the Regiment? Was Kyle just further round the curve? Perhaps this encounter was going to prove a valuable wake-up call. But right now there was a choice to be made. He was sounding as if he was about to set Tom some kind of challenge.

Suppose Woolf was right, that there was a more sinister element to Invicta and Rolt. Could that element be Stutz? For better or worse, Tom had got himself this far under the wire. He was being given a chance to go deeper. In the interests of getting to that next level, of penetrating Stutz’s operation, of finding out more about their plans, it had to be worth it.

Kyle finished his call.

Tom stood up and grinned. ‘Okay.’ He held out his hands. ‘I’m in.’

48

Victoria, London

How could he sleep? The adrenalin that had been coursing round him seemed to intensify until he thought he might have a stroke. Then she was shaking him awake.

‘They are ready for you. Turn left out of the front door and go to the corner. You will see a black people-carrier.’

‘Is there a name?’

‘They’ll make themselves known to you. Go.’

He pulled on his jacket and shoes. He hadn’t undressed.

She followed him to the door and closed it behind him.

Close to the junction the people-carrier, an old Toyota Previa, was parked with no lights on. As he came towards it the side door slid open. ‘Sahim?’

‘Yes.’

He couldn’t see who was speaking. The voice came from deep inside the vehicle.

‘Come to the door.’ A small sharp beam of light was pointed at his face. ‘Get in.’

He hesitated.

‘Now, please.’

The engine started. He climbed in. It was very warm inside. There were four of them. He saw a phone, its screen glowing with an image. They thrust it in front of him.

‘Watch.’

It was a video of a man lying on a mattress. Whoever was recording him moved closer and pulled back the sheet covering him. The figure on the bed shrank away as if he was about to be hit.

Something was shouted that Sam didn’t understand. A hand grabbed the man’s head and turned it to face the camera.

‘Is that him?’

For a second he wasn’t sure. The eyes were completely bloodshot. The face had several weeks’ growth of beard and was shrunken and emaciated, but when the camera was pointed at him the eyes lit up. He whispered, ‘Help me, brother.’

A wave of shock and relief came over him. ‘That’s him.’

He felt something sting his arm, then everything went black.

Sometime later, he had no idea how many hours had passed, he came to. His head was resting against the glass. He could see road rushing by. Three lanes. A motorway. He tried to lift his head to see who else was in the vehicle but he couldn’t move. Then he felt a pain in his upper arm and was out again.

When he woke the next time his hands were tied and some fabric covered his face. A voice he hadn’t heard before addressed him. ‘Sahim?’

This was a new voice, older, with a strong accent he couldn’t place.

‘What’s happening?’

‘Sahim Kovacevic, confirm your name.’

‘Yes, that’s me. But I need the toilet.’

He was led through a couple of doors, his jeans were undone and pulled down and he was manoeuvred onto a lavatory seat. There was a strong smell of oil and he heard an engine being revved. Maybe they were in a garage. He was led back and put on a hard chair.

‘Can I have a drink?’

There was some mumbling, then steps, then a door being closed. The hood was lifted just enough to uncover his mouth. Sam could see part of a face: a man in his early twenties, Asian, with a small scrub of beard round the outline of his chin, holding a can of Coke to Sam’s mouth. He smelt of tobacco and garlic. Sam drank, the Coke running down his chin. The hood came back down.

The older voice spoke again. ‘You are the brother of Karza, that is right?’

‘What’s happened to him?’

‘He is injured. You will pay for his release or he will be killed.’

‘Who has him?’

‘One million dollars.’

‘
What?
’

This couldn’t be happening.

‘I don’t have anything like that. I’m just an ordinary person.’

‘You are in the government.’

‘I’m just a spokesman.’

‘Then he won’t survive.’

‘But this is madness! He had no idea, he went to help. He was just an innocent—’

The older man cut him off. ‘What are you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What are you?’

‘I’m a British citizen.’

‘That’s what your passport says. When you walk down your street at night, is that what you think? That you are one of them?’

‘I’ve never thought of myself as particularly different.’

‘You’ve never
thought
at all. Have you?’

‘This country hasn’t done anything bad to me.’

This was not the right thing to say.

‘This country and its allies, its coalition of infidels, is killing your brothers. When you turn on the television and you see the dead and dying Muslims, mutilated by bombs and bullets, do you not see your brothers?’

Sam was starting to sweat under the hood. He could hear the older man’s anger rising.

‘Do you understand anything about what is happening in Syria?’

Sam shook his head. This wasn’t a time to bluff. ‘Only minimally.’

‘Since you are a servant of this government, you should inform yourself so you better understand what your masters are capable of.’

He was tired, frightened and now angry. Two days ago he’d been assaulted by Dink for his race; now this. What had he ever done to deserve it?

‘Okay. Inform me, then.’

‘You know who encouraged us to go to Syria at the beginning?’

Sam shook his head. He could feel a lecture coming his way.

‘The British government. They sponsored us to go and help the resistance. Go and be heroes, liberate Syria from the dictatorship. So we went to help our brothers. Young Muslims from Britain, many without jobs, without respect, feeling isolated by the licentiousness and decadence that surrounds them, spat on, shunned because they were obedient to God, because they prayed and didn’t drink. A chance to do something worthwhile, to attain some worth in the service of Allah, praise be upon him.

‘So we jumped at the chance. We trained, we prepared, and we saw for ourselves the suffering. But where were the arms we were promised, where were the bullets? They didn’t come. So we rationed the bullets, we shared the weapons. We had to steal to eat, to get fuel. We, who had come to be liberators, were stealing from the people we had come to liberate. Imagine, if you can, the shame, the betrayal.

‘The men your brother was with, they are surviving on almost nothing. The West has deceived them, and they are trapped. Every day there is a choice. Do we buy bullets or food? They can’t even come back now. Because the government that encouraged them to go now looks on them as criminals. So they have no choice but to side with the Islamists who have bullets
and
food.’

Where was this going? Sam’s neck and back ached. The man leaned forward suddenly and he felt his breath through the hood.

‘Find the money. You have a week.’

He was pulled onto his feet, frogmarched back to the van and sedated again.

When he came to he was lying on a bench, with traffic whizzing past a few feet away. He looked round. Cockfosters tube station was just up the road. He got to his feet and stumbled towards the entrance.

49

Sam sat on the tube, watching the commuters nodding to the music in their earbuds, eyes glued to iPads, Kindles and tabloids: ‘My Serial Sex Cheat Shame’ and below it ‘TIME TO STOP THE TERROR’. The whole front page of the
Sun
was devoted to a statement by someone – perhaps the paper itself. ‘The government must bring itself to think the unthinkable … The time has come to stop the talk and take action … The enemy within … Time to face the facts. Where all the terror is coming from and what we need to do to stop it. Stop it now.’

The words swam in front of his eyes. All he could see was the film they had shown him of Karza.
Help me, brother
. Before, he had been quick to dismiss him and his absurd delusions of being a warrior. Now, for the first time he could remember, he began to think of him differently. In the past, he had never had any reason to admire him. Now he saw that each of them in their own very different ways had gone searching for meaning, for validation, to do something that made a difference. And here he was and there Karza was.

He thought about throwing himself on the mercy of Pippa. She had been very understanding. They would want to avoid a scandal. And they had rich donors. Or just go to the Foreign Office. No! How could he be so naïve? He thought of his mother seeing the footage he had been shown, the last sight of her son alive, pleading for her other son to help him. He would have to do something … but what?

He became aware of the other passengers looking at him. A girl reading a Kindle seemed to be frowning. An elderly red-faced man was also looking askance at him, as if Sam himself was the enemy. Was this tolerant country, which had welcomed him with open arms, now turning against him?

50

When he got back to the flat the door of the big bedroom was shut. He went into the bathroom and cleaned himself up, then made himself a coffee. In an hour he had to be at Party Headquarters for a briefing with Vernon Rolt, the man from the organization called Invicta which had been bombed. But he couldn’t think about anything other than Karza and the dreadful situation they both now found themselves in. His head throbbed painfully. He had only wanted to help. Now catastrophe was just around the corner and there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

He was sitting on a stool at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, staring into his mug, when the bedroom door opened and Nasima appeared in a trouser suit and hijab. He turned away. Tears were rolling down his cheeks and converging under his chin. His nose was running. He didn’t want her to see that, to see his helplessness. But she came up close, put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him towards her. His tear-stained face pressed against her chest for several comforting seconds until she gently moved him away.