State Of Emergency: (Tom Buckingham Thriller 3) (26 page)

The two men looked at her.

‘I’m sorry you feel that way, Xenia.’ There was no trace of apology in McCloud’s tone.

She looked down at the page-rough that was laid out on her desk with its screaming headline. Somehow, she had to get even. The anger was boiling up in her now, ready to burst out. She picked up the page-rough, held it up for a second and, as the two men watched, she tore it into pieces.

50

17.00
HMP Belmarsh

Jamal stared at the note:
Empty your toilet bowl. 1 a.m.
He had found it under the drinking cup on his meal tray.

For the last day he had asked to be left in his cell. News had spread round the jail that the so-called ‘Butcher of Aleppo’ was in Belmarsh. It didn’t matter that he was only on remand. The world of the prison was no different from outside. He was guilty. He was a target. Never mind that he hadn’t been tried or even charged. He turned the slip of paper in his fingers. It was a piece of toilet paper, the message written in pencil.

Two hours ago the governor, Alan Thompson, had paid him a visit. Jamal stood to attention when he entered. Thompson gave him a pitying look and told him he didn’t need to do that. ‘I’ve got some good news. Your sister has been granted permission to visit you. It seems your Member of Parliament has taken an interest in your case and requested that I give you the news personally, so there’s no danger of it getting lost or – forgotten.’

Jamal looked into Thompson’s face to see if there was any indication of whether he thought this was a good thing or not. But the man’s features were devoid of expression. In spite of that, tears of joy welled in Jamal’s eyes. ‘Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.’

‘You’ll get twenty-five minutes in the communal meeting area.’

Twenty-five minutes. He must think what to say to make the most of it.

‘Try to stay out of trouble between now and then, eh? You don’t want to give the Home Office a reason to rescind.’

The governor left and Jamal was alone with his fears.

It was twelve forty-five. He hadn’t been able to sleep. What would happen if he emptied the toilet? He had no idea.

He presumed it was from Isham. He was the only other inmate who had said anything to him that wasn’t a volley of threats and abuse. He had avoided him in the prayer meeting but here, in the darkness of night, with the mounting sense of his own total solitude, he had begun to think that the offer of friendship was not to be rejected.

He had a plastic cup and a water bottle that was almost empty. He knelt down and began to scoop the water from the toilet bowl with the cup, pouring it carefully into the bottle. As the bowl emptied he became aware of a sound coming through the pipe. A sort of hum or chant, very distorted and indistinct.

‘Hello?’ he called softly.

‘Brother.’ The word came back so clearly it might have come from the next cell.

‘Isham?’

‘Brother.’

The voice was hard to recognize, transmitted in this way, but he was sure it was the man he had prayed beside.

‘Are you praying, brother?’

‘Yes, I am praying.’ It was a lie: Jamal had intended to pray again but his pleas to God for help sounded pathetic and weak.

‘Do you have hope?’

He didn’t like to say no. ‘My sister is coming. They’ve allowed her to visit.’

Isham went silent for several seconds. ‘When does your sister come?’

Jamal told him. There was no response. After a few minutes of calling softly and no answer Jamal carefully replaced the water in the bowl.

51

10.00
Newland Hall, Malvern Hills, Worcestershire

I’m at my parents’. Give us a shout.
Tom pressed send.

Ashton’s reply came back in seconds.
The Flying Horse: 16.00.

A pub about ten miles away.

Tom’s mother was bent over the unstitched dog bite on his forearm. She knew better than to ask how he had come by it. He was seated at the kitchen table, her first-aid kit open beside him. He had arrived late last night, given her a hug, collapsed into his old bed and slept solidly for sixteen hours.

‘So, will you be here for dinner?’

‘Maybe. I’ll let you know.’

She sighed. ‘You turn up without any warning and I don’t even know if you’re just going to disappear again.’

‘I know. I’m sorry, okay? It’s like this right now.’

She squeezed his shoulder. ‘Still, it’s wonderful to have you back after so long. Sit still while I finish this. It’s quite nasty. I suppose you’re not going to tell me what happened.’

He smiled. ‘Afraid I don’t remember a thing. Must have had a few too many.’

She rolled her eyes. He knew she didn’t believe him. It didn’t matter. Long ago he had trained her to accept that he was always going to be economical with the truth about his life. But after the madness of the last few days it felt very good to be back in the comparative sanity of home.

‘Tell me again what Ashton said.’

‘Truly, only what I’ve told you. He was very civil, concerned to know that you were happy in your new role. We just made polite noises back. It was all we could say since we haven’t a clue how it’s—’

‘All right, Mum.’

‘He seemed keen to see you again but I think he was a bit reticent about making a direct approach since your departure from the Regiment. Think he wanted us to drop you a hint.’

‘Well, consider it dropped. So where’s Dad today?’

‘He got called back to town. He’s got some big deal going on he’s rather excited about.’

‘What sort of big deal?’

‘He’s been rather cagey about it, which is most unlike him. In fact, he’s been like that for the past couple of weeks. I worry about him, sometimes even more than I worry about you.’

Hugh had been equally unforthcoming with him, but Tom wasn’t about to add to his mother’s worries. ‘He can look after himself – he’s never screwed up.’

She gave him a wry look. ‘There’s always a first time.’

After she had finished patching him up, he went into his father’s study. On the desk there was a big old-fashioned Rolodex. Like many of his generation Hugh was almost endearingly wary of the digital world and still laboriously copied out the names and addresses of all his contacts onto small cards. Mandler’s comment about Umarov building up a property portfolio had made Tom wonder if his father had come across him. He spun through the cards to U, but there was no Umarov. That was a relief. He put the Rolodex back in its place, then booted up the PC and had a few goes at the password.
Horace
worked: always the name of one of their dogs. He scrolled through his inbox and then his sent items until he started to feel grubby about what he was doing. Imagine if his father did the same to him. He shut the PC down and pushed the chair back from the desk. He was about to leave but something else caught his eye.

The box wasn’t as big as the one he’d found in Rolt’s office, and the Ordynka inside was less elaborately engraved. But the dedication said it all:
To Hugh, from your friend, Oleg.

52

15.45

On the way to the pub, Tom tried not to think about what he had found in his father’s study. He needed to rehearse the story of his apparent motivation for the meeting with Ashton but the thought that Hugh was in any way involved with Umarov was deeply troubling. Previously separate parts of his life had now become entangled.

It was Ashton who had thrown down the gauntlet by dropping in on his folks. Rolt was now in government and Tom’s role as his right-hand man had been overtaken by events. It was coming up to time for him to move on; nothing more complicated than that. Oh, and an inclination, which Tom was not at all sure he was ready for, to put the past behind him.

He drew up outside the Flying Horse. It was closed for refurbishment. Ashton presumably didn’t know either. He was about to text him when a black Mercedes G-Wagen rumbled into view, the same vehicle he had seen in the Lakes, which had been used to cart away Evans, his men and their dead dog. At the sight of it his blood ran cold. It turned into the car park beside the pub. The windows were blacked out so it was impossible to see if Ashton had company.

Tom stepped out of his car and walked up to the Merc as Ashton emerged from the front passenger side. So, he wasn’t alone. Ashton was dressed much as he always was, thick sweater, chinos and boots. ‘Hello, Tom.’

‘Hello, boss.’ Old habits died hard.

Ashton cracked a rare smile, took his hand and gripped it firmly. ‘Good to see you.’

Two men, who might well have been the ones with him when he had murdered Evans, stepped out of the Merc.

‘It’s closed, by the way,’ Tom said.

‘I know,’ replied Ashton.

One of the men approached him and patted him down carefully.

‘Sorry about this, Tom. Can’t be too careful at the moment. Strange days, eh?’

Tom’s firearm was in the car. Carrying it would have looked odd. A warning bell sounded in his head. But then it was shut off, along with everything else, as he felt himself fall to the ground.

53

Something jolted him awake: something cold and wet on his face. He tried to reach up to remove it, but his arms were pinned to his sides. He was flat on his back, his feet higher than his head. He moved his head and realized with a jolt that it was wrapped in something.

‘Who’re you working with, Tom?’

Ashton’s voice. Tom pulled furiously against the bindings.

‘What the fuck is this?’

‘Just answer the question, Tom.’

Ashton sounded faintly bored.

‘You know who I’m working for. Vernon Rolt. Invicta.’

Ashton uttered something he couldn’t hear.

The cold spread across his face, saturating the cloth wrapped round it and blocking his airways. Okay, he told himself. I can deal with this. Concentrate on what you’re here for.

‘I’ll say it again. Who is it, Tom? Who’s put you up to this?’

How ironic. Ashton’s question was the very one Tom wanted to ask him.

The water saturated the cloth over his face. Try as he might, he could not stop his body going into convulsions, thinking it was drowning. He used all his concentration not to struggle. The more he tried to resist, the worse it would get.

You are not going to drown
, he told himself.
That’s not what they want.

He felt the vomit rising in him and spreading across into his blocked airways.

There was only one way to deal with this. To relax. Yeah, good idea. Very funny. The water seeped straight through the cloth, into his nostrils and straight into the sinuses. No amount of head-shaking or snorting could stop it. The only thing to do was try to block everything, but how to do that and answer? There is only so long a human being can hold their breath. In the end the body takes over and with that sudden gasp comes an intake of water. The one thing Tom tried to cling to was the thought that Ashton wanted him alive. But he had seen off Evans. And they were both part of Invicta. Was this a purge? Don’t be a fool, he told himself.

‘Come on, Tom. Just give us the truth. Let’s get this done.’

Who the hell else could he be working for? He could give up Mandler’s name – except he knew Mandler would deny all: he had told him as much. Anyway, he was on his own. The old spook had said as much. He told himself to cling to that thought. Rolt was his only employer.

His body had gone into spasm, struggling for all it was worth to expel the water.

Someone lifted him up and he vomited the water out.

‘Who are
you
working for?’ He coughed. ‘What’s all this about? I work for Rolt – I’ve barely left his side for the last four months.’

He repeated it over and over, all the time arguing with the bit of his brain shouting at him to say Mandler’s name and have done with it. There were moments when the names became confused in his mind as he fought to stay conscious.

He heard Ashton’s voice very close to his ear, almost a whisper. ‘This isn’t working, Tom. Give it up, be a good man.’

They repeated the same routine with the water until he felt himself losing his grip on consciousness. But he forced himself, against every sinew inside his body, to hold on.

‘Vernon Rolt, Vernon Rolt,’ he repeated the name over and over.

Then he felt himself falling onto a hard cold surface, his pinioned arms unable to break the fall as he came down on his side. There he curled up in a foetal position as he attempted to empty his lungs.

‘Okay, clean him up.
Ochistite yego
.’

54

Tom faced his former CO across a grey metal table. In front of him was a mug of coffee and an M&S sandwich still in its wrapper. Ashton had on a black parka now. The room was freezing cold.

‘Sorry about that. Just a precaution.’ Ashton gave him a wan smile.

Tom said nothing. His throat and lungs felt as though he had just inhaled a volcano.

‘You know how it is.’

‘No, I fucking well don’t know how it is. For fuck’s sake!’ His outrage, even if not the result of innocence, was genuine.

‘We just had to be sure you were still kosher, okay?’

‘Who else could I have been working for? Al-Qaeda? ISIS?’ He reached for the sandwich and ripped open the wrapper. Chicken and avocado, his favourite. He used to be ribbed about this in the Regiment. Ashton must have remembered. He bit into it. He had every right to be furious about the waterboarding, but he reminded himself he had walked into this for a reason. Now he was a step closer to finding out what Ashton was up to.

Ashton cleared his throat, leaned forward and rubbed his hands. A bit of him wondered if his old CO was enjoying this. ‘What a difference six months makes, eh?’

‘What’s that mean?’ Tom spoke through a mouthful of chicken.

‘We’re living in desperate times, Tom. You can see that as well as I can – maybe we all should have seen it coming. And desperate times call for desperate measures. You of all people should know that.’