Hot Blood (8 page)

‘The boss is right,’ said Shortt, from the back. ‘We busted into a prison to get Spider out once before, so I don’t think we’d have any problems getting ourselves out.’

‘Like I said, it won’t come to that,’ said the Major. ‘Take a left ahead, Martin.’

O’Brien indicated and they turned off Brixton Hill. ‘Number twenty-four,’ said Shortt. He was sitting on the floor of the van, Shepherd to his left and Armstrong to his right.

‘Are we sure he’s going to be walking home?’ asked O’Brien. He brought the van to a halt down the road from number twenty-four. It was mid-way along a terrace of Victorian houses with weathered bricks, slate roofs and front doors that opened on to the street.

‘He doesn’t have a car, so he’ll be on the Victoria Line home,’ said Shortt.

‘Unless he gets a lift from a colleague,’ said O’Brien.

‘If he gets a lift, we’ll get him in the house,’ said Shortt. ‘He’s in the office today – I checked. And he was in at ten so I figure with a nine-hour day he’ll be here some time in the next hour or so.’

‘Unless he goes out for a drink after work,’ said O’Brien.

‘He’s a Muslim, so he doesn’t drink,’ said Shortt. ‘What’s with all the doom and gloom, anyway, Martin? Is your blood sugar getting low?’

‘Let’s relax,’ said the Major. ‘He’ll be here some time tonight, no matter how he comes.’

‘Anyone else in the house?’ asked Shepherd.

‘It’s rented. I phoned a couple of times during the day and no one answered,’ said Shortt.

Armstrong took out a Browning Hi-power semi-automatic and checked the action.

‘No one gets hurt,’ said the Major.

‘The magazine’s empty,’ said Armstrong.

‘We do what we have to do, but I don’t want him in hospital,’ said the Major. ‘If he gets hurt, the police’ll be called in.’

‘The cops are already here,’ laughed Shortt, and jerked a thumb at Shepherd.

Shepherd flashed him a sarcastic smile. He was far from happy at what they were about to do, but he knew they had no choice. He was a policeman, but Geordie Mitchell was a friend and Shepherd would do whatever it took to save his life.

O’Brien switched on the radio and flicked through the channels until he found one playing bland seventies music. The men listened to the Police, Elton John, and the Eagles as they waited.

It was close to nine o’clock when the Major switched it off. ‘This could be him,’ he said, looking in the wing mirror.

O’Brien twisted round in his seat. A man in his early thirties was walking from the direction of the Tube. He was wearing a green parka with a fur-trimmed hood and carrying a brown leather briefcase. He had slicked-back black hair and a Saddam Hussein-style moustache. O’Brien had the photocopy of Basharat’s passport on the dashboard and passed it to the Major. ‘Looks like him,’ he said.

‘Right, here we go,’ said the Major. He watched in the mirror as Basharat strode towards his house. ‘Start the engine, Martin.’

O’Brien turned on the ignition.

‘Fifty feet,’ said the Major.

Shepherd, Shortt and Armstrong pulled on ski masks. They were already wearing gloves.

‘Forty feet,’ said the Major.

Shepherd took a deep breath. There was no going back once the van door opened.

‘Thirty feet,’ said the Major.

Shortt slid across to the side of the van.

‘Go,’ said the Major. ‘Go, go, go.’

Shortt opened the side door and jumped out on to the pavement, followed by Shepherd and Armstrong. Basharat stopped when he saw them, his mouth open in surprise. Shortt reached him first, grabbed his left arm and jerked him towards the van. Basharat started to yell but Shepherd clamped a hand over his mouth and seized the hood of his parka with the other. Between them, they hauled him towards Armstrong at the van’s door.

Shortt scrambled in, pulling Basharat after him. Shepherd’s hand slipped from the man’s mouth, but before he could shout, Shortt slammed him on to the floor and put a hand round his throat.

Shepherd and Armstrong piled in and Shepherd pulled the door shut as O’Brien drove off.

Shortt took his hand off Basharat’s throat.

‘Who the hell are you?’ the Arab hissed.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ said Armstrong, shoving the barrel of his gun under the captive’s chin.

‘Are you Israelis?’ he asked. ‘If so, there’s been some sort of mistake. I’m just a journalist.’

Armstrong put his masked face close to the Arab’s. ‘If you say one more thing, I’ll smash your fucking teeth with the butt of this gun. Understand?’

The man nodded.

Shortt picked up a roll of electrical tape and used it to bind Basharat’s wrists together behind his back. Then Shepherd pulled a sack over his head. ‘Breathe slowly and you’ll be all right,’ he said. There was no sound from the Arab. ‘Nod if you understand,’ he added. The sack moved up and down.

O’Brien drove south out of London, heading to a farm in Surrey that the Major had cased that morning. It had been put up for auction after the death of its owner. The livestock had gone and the house was empty. The nearest neighbour was half a mile away, a cottage occupied by an old lady and her six cats.

Following the Major’s directions, O’Brien turned off the main road, drove through two villages then down a rutted track. He switched off the van’s lights and slowed while his eyes grew accustomed to the dark. They passed an auctioneer’s sign, then a smaller one that gave the farm’s name. O’Brien brought the van to a standstill: there was a barred metal gate across the track and the Major got out to open it.

The farmhouse was a two-storey building with a line of outhouses jutting from the right-hand side. There was a large corrugated metal barn and, lined up in front of it, a range of agricultural equipment, including a tractor and several ploughs. O’Brien parked in front of the barn. ‘Get him out,’ said the Major.

Shortt opened the van’s rear doors. Armstrong and Shepherd seized an arm each and dragged Basharat out. It had started to rain and the Arab slipped on the wet grass as they frogmarched him towards the barn. Shortt hurried ahead and pulled open the wooden door for Armstrong and Shepherd to haul Basharat inside. Shepherd wrinkled his nose at the strong smell of pigs. Shortt switched on a flashlight and played the beam around the interior. There were metal pens to the right and storage bins to the left. Fluorescent lights hung from rafters that ran the length of the barn.

‘Down on the floor,’ hissed Armstrong. When Basharat hesitated, Armstrong kicked his legs from under him and the Arab fell. He landed heavily, his shoulder and head slamming against concrete.

The Major helped Shortt to shut the door, then pulled out his own flashlight. He motioned for Shortt to put his ski mask back on, then pointed at Shepherd and signalled for him to remove Basharat’s hood.

Shepherd did so and Basharat coughed, then tried to sit up but Armstrong planted a foot on his chest and forced him back to the floor. The Major stood by the door, his arms folded.

Armstrong glared at Basharat. ‘We’re going to ask you some questions,’ he said. ‘Tell us what we want to know and you’ll be free to go.’ He pointed his gun at the Arab’s head. ‘If you don’t tell us what we want to know, you’ll die in this place. You’ll die and we’ll bury you in a field and no one will ever find your body.’

‘I’m a journalist,’ said Basharat. ‘I’m just a journalist.’

‘The videos of the hostages in Iraq – where do they come from?’

‘What?’ Basharat frowned.

Shortt stepped forward and kicked him in the ribs. Basharat screamed. ‘Just answer his questions!’ shouted Shortt.

‘How do the videos get to the station?’ asked the Major.

‘Which videos?’ asked Basharat.

Shortt kicked him again.

Tears streamed down the Arab’s face. ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘The videos of the hostages,’ said the Major. ‘How do they get to the TV station?’ He walked over to stand next to Armstrong.

‘It depends,’ said Basharat.

‘On what?’

‘Sometimes we get a disk. A DVD or a CD. Sometimes it comes through the Internet.’

‘You know the Brit who was taken last week – the one being held by the Holy Martyrs of Islam?’

‘I saw the story, but I didn’t work on it.’

‘How did that video get to the station?’

‘I don’t know. How would I know? I’m a correspondent, I don’t work on the desk.’

The Major paced up and down at Basharat’s feet. ‘What about the American journalist, the one who was beheaded? How did the station get that video?’

‘That was a DVD.’

‘How do you know?’

‘My brother told me. He works on the news desk in Qatar. We spoke about it at the time.’

‘And how did the DVD get to the station?’ asked the Major.

‘From our correspondent in Dubai. It was delivered to his office.’

‘Hand-delivered?’

‘I don’t know. It could have been or it could have been mailed.’

‘Why do you think it went to the Dubai office?’ asked the Major.

‘I don’t know,’ said Basharat. ‘To muddy the waters, I suppose. The CIA watch our head office, bug our phones, follow us to see who we meet.’ He squinted up at the Major. ‘You’re not Israelis, are you? Are you CIA? MI5?’

Shortt stepped forward to kick Basharat again, and the Arab tried to roll out of the way – ‘Okay, okay, okay.’

‘So the DVD went to your office in Dubai. Then what?’ said the Major.

‘Someone loaded it into a computer then zapped it over to our news desk. They edited it, then put it on air and on to our website.’

The Major stared down at Basharat. ‘What happened to the DVD? Did you pass it on to the authorities?’

‘What authorities?’

‘The police? The Americans?’

‘We’re journalists. We protect our sources.’

‘Even when they’re terrorists?’ asked Armstrong.

‘We’re journalists,’ repeated Basharat. ‘We just report on what’s happening.’

‘You broadcast videos of people being murdered,’ said Armstrong.

‘But that’s
all
we do,’ said Basharat. ‘We report on the people killed by the insurgents, and we report on the killings carried out by the coalition forces.’

‘We need to know how the latest video got to the station,’ said the Major.

‘I told you, I don’t know. I assume it came the same way as the Lake video.’

‘We have to be sure. I need you to phone your brother and ask him how he got the latest video.’

‘It’s the middle of the night in Qatar.’

Shortt kicked Basharat in the ribs. He yelped.

The Major knelt down, went through Basharat’s pockets and pulled out his mobile phone. ‘Tell him you’re doing a story on Mitchell’s kidnapping. Tell him a source has told you that the British government might be making a statement first thing tomorrow and you want some background.’

Shepherd and Shortt helped the man to sit up. Shortt used a Swiss Army knife to cut the tape binding his wrists.

‘When you talk to your brother, do you normally speak English?’

Basharat shook his head.

‘Okay,’ said the Major. He gestured at Shortt. ‘He speaks Arabic. Not fluently, but well enough to follow what you’re saying.’

Basharat looked at Shortt, who spoke a few clipped words in Arabic, then grinned. ‘I told him what I’ll do to his mother if he screws us around.’

‘If he even suspects you’re tipping your brother off, you’ll get a bullet in your head,’ said the Major. ‘Do you understand?’

Basharat nodded sullenly. The Major handed him the phone. Armstrong aimed the gun squarely at the Arab’s face, his finger on the trigger.

Basharat scrolled through the phone’s address book, then hit the green button. He put the phone to his ear, then spoke rapidly in Arabic. It was clear from his tone that he was apologising for waking his brother. Then he was talking in a more measured tone, trying to avoid looking at the gun.

Shortt was listening intently. The Major hadn’t been bluffing: Shortt did speak some Arabic but Shepherd was aware that his knowledge of the language was basic, to say the least.

Basharat’s voice was trembling and he kept taking deep breaths, trying to steady himself. He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose as he spoke. Eventually he ended the call.

‘Well done,’ said the Major, taking the phone from him. ‘What did he say?’

‘The video came attached to an email,’ said Basharat. ‘A Yahoo account. It was about four minutes long. My brother says there was nothing special on the bits they didn’t broadcast.’

‘Who sent it?’

‘The group holding him. The Holy Martyrs of Islam.’

The Major held out the phone. ‘Call him back. Get him to forward the email to you.’

‘He’s mad enough at me as it is,’ said Basharat.

‘Well, you’ll have to decide which is the least dangerous option,’ said the Major. ‘Your brother being angry with you, or me and these guys. I doubt your brother’ll put a bullet in your head.’

Armstrong tapped the gun barrel against Basharat’s head to emphasise the point.

‘He’s at home. The email will be on his office computer.’

‘Tell him it’s important, that you need it now – tell him what the hell you like but we want that email and we want it now. Do you have a personal email account? Yahoo or Hotmail?’

Basharat nodded. ‘I’ve got a g-mail account.’

‘Tell him you’re working at home so he should send it to your personal account.’

Basharat took the phone and called his brother again. Shepherd could hear the tension in his voice, and sweat was pouring down his face. He spoke earnestly, his brow furrowed, then fell silent for a while. When he spoke again, he was clearly imploring his brother to do as he asked. Eventually he sighed with relief and switched off the phone. ‘He’ll do it,’ he said. ‘It’ll take him about half an hour.’