Thunder (33 page)

Greere nodded again. “I’m sure you don’t, Mr. Prime Minister,” he said with a wry smile. “And, as nice as it is to see you again, I hope you don’t mind me saying, that I hope it’ll be a very long time before we might need to talk about such matters again.”

~~~~~

Skala Kallonis

I shave for the occasion. Make myself presentable. It has been a long time since I’ve had a good shave. Whilst I am lucky, and my hair doesn’t grow quickly, it’s still taken a while, and a good few passes of his borrowed razor to clear my stubble. I had forgotten how good it feels to be smooth and clean and I spend a few moments running my hands over my skin; enjoying a second or two of selfish luxury after my self-imposed purgatory.

He startles me, thrusting his head around the open bathroom door. “Are you ready yet?” he grumbles, but lingers there for a little while longer than he needs to. I bend down and snatch up my towel, from where it’s strewn haphazardly on the tiles, and sidle past him into the bedroom to find some clothes.

It takes about ten minutes for us, and the scooter, to trundle along the rough tarmac country lanes into the nearby town and tourist village of Skala Kallonis. It comprises a small harbour and fishing community surrounded by a handful of peripherally placed, medium sized, hotels which plunge a steady stream of, initially culture shocked, tourists headlong into the heart of Greek rural life. Once acclimatised, and at the end of what is always too few days, these same visitors will regularly discover that it’s a difficult place to pack up and leave behind.

We are sitting in the square. Next to the silent, circular concrete, fountain which hasn’t worked for as long as anyone can remember. Its slightly elevated circumference provides little more than an entertaining perch for the herds of local kids, all armed with their various handheld games consoles or mobile phones.

Jack seems to know everyone here and jabbers away in Greek with his hands and muscular arms flying around in all directions. He looks so comfortable, so relaxed.

I am so comfortable too.

The bar’s owner – Yanni Nomikos, an OCD, meticulous, wannabe-industrialist friend of Jack’s – tends to our wishes whilst perpetually nudging his carefully coordinated tables and sofas an inch or two, to the left or right, to make sure they look ‘just right’. He also supplies us with a regular stream of punctuating Tequila shots, ice-cold, from his personal fridge out back. Khristos, Yanni’s barman and helper, buzzes around like a demon possessed and promises to bring me wild herbs he has collected from the mountains. Maria, Yanni’s pet bulldog, chases away all lustful suitors, and motorbikes, and cats, who encroach on her personal feeding zone. Yanni shakes his head at her in mock frustration, particularly when she sits with her best, albeit fight-damaged, begging eyes, and gruesome Shrek-like underbite at my feet. For such an ugly fighter, she’s a soft touch really, and appears to enjoy my fussing and the occasional snack I sneak down to her. Doubtless these treats only add slightly to her already paunchy physique.

The bar is called Argo.

We spend far too long there.

~~~~~

Northern Iran, near the Turkmenistan Border

Nagpal watched carefully as Ebrahimi heaved himself to his feet and pulled his rucksack back onto his shoulders. His interest in this man, and the need to keep him alive, continued to dwindle on a daily basis, but even so, for the time being, Nagpal knew he was still better off having him around. Two guns were better than one. He needed to ensure that he had more friends around him before he could do anything about the fool who had betrayed his unit. Before he could do anything about the fool who had, somehow, let himself get tagged by the infidels.

Ebrahimi strode toward him. “Why here?” the young man asked again, forcefully. It was about the tenth time he’d asked this question since they’d disembarked two hours ago. “Why not fifty kilometres north of here? Why are we in
Iran
when our homeland is just over
there
?” Ebrahimi waved an arm angrily northwards.

One of Nagpal’s cellphones bleeped and he pulled it out. “Come on,” he said simply. “You will find out.”

They hiked inland at a fast pace.

“We need to move quickly,” Nagpal instructed.

In front of them hard-baked brown clay spread for miles, punctuated by occasional round, wattling field huts. This forsaken tract of land was a flat and barren, almost completely abandoned wilderness which stretched north, from the edge of the irrigated plains surrounding the Iranian city of Aq Qala, into the deserts of Southwest Turkmenistan.

Nagpal paused. In the distance he could hear the sound of approaching engines. “Come on,” he insisted, and they hurried forwards.

Plumes of dusty sand rose ahead of them forming an untidy cloud which dragged itself noisily across the otherwise featureless landscape. As the dust started to settle an object began to appear in silhouette amongst the billowing particles.

“A plane?” exclaimed the panting man beside him.

“Yes, Sergei,” Nagpal announced triumphantly, pushing himself into a faster jogging pace. “A plane... You see, we still have friends. Though not many. You might want to wander into our homeland, and straight into the arms of our corrupted government. If so, feel FREE!” He stopped suddenly and wheeled on the youngster. “Feel free to go...! Go! Go on RUN! There’s no real border. Take yourself into their arms. How long do you think it will take them to find you? A day? A week? How many of your precious family will they have to drag off, and rape, or murder before you hand yourself in? Before you find yourself at the end of a torturer’s blade, spitting and pissing blood from every orifice, betraying every last connection we have...!”

He paused but Sergei was shocked-silent.

“WELL?” he demanded. “What are you waiting for?”

“You said we were going home...,” Sergei whispered, the fight had once again drained out of him.

Nagpal stepped closer to the other man, and leant in toward him. “I also said it would be a long and arduous journey,” he muttered softly. “You will get to your promised destination. You will get to return to the place where
all
of your ancestors reside. Soon enough. I
promise
you that.”

Sergei stared soundlessly at him and Nagpal couldn’t help but wonder why the fool clung to such pointless and romantic fantasies. He would make sure he found himself more properly trained soldiers for the next phase of his campaign. These Ebrahimi children had proven only to be a burden.

“Come on,” he continued and started moving again. “My friend cannot be caught here. He has to get back to his own homeland.” Nagpal pointed in front of him, eastwards, beyond the aircraft’s continuing prop-driven dust clouds. “We will be within sight of home where we’re going. We will have access to friends and allies. We will be able to plan and organise for the proper recognition of our glorious actions, for the creation of our deserved nation state and, as you so passionately yearn after, for a safe and triumphant return.”

‘Besides,’ he thought to himself, ‘I cannot let you be caught, Sergei. You know far too much about my network for me to ever allow that to happen.’

~~~~~

Skala Kallonis

And now, suddenly, I am well again.

I can beat him when we sprint into the sea.

Vengeance – which Jack had very proudly presented, back to me, to my absolute delight, as being just part of the comprehensive arsenal he’d smuggled along with us from Hungary – is snatching tins off the top of his tumble down walls.

I am healed, fit, tanned, and as whole as I have ever felt. Time has come. Time to leave. Time to complete our mission. Time to travel back into our own, personal, war-zone.

Yanni comes and perches his athletic, and not unattractive, frame on the corner of our table. Just like he has done, roughly every hour, of every evening, over the last few weeks. “One for the road?” he asks the same question every time he squats there, usually with a cheeky twinkle in his eyes, but it’s clear from his current demeanour that he’s noticed things have taken a serious turn tonight.

I glance at Khristos’ latest gift – a little pot of fresh Oregano, so carefully and painstakingly gathered – which perches proudly next to my almost finished lager bottle.

Jack forces himself to smile next to me. “One for the road,” he agrees, sadly.

I have to admit, I agree with his tone.

I don’t want to go...

~~~~~

London

Shaz Manjeethra stirred. She could hear quiet movements in her apartment. Someone opening and closing the fridge door. The rattle of a teaspoon.

She looked at the bedside clock, its digits glowing red in the darkness. Four twenty-two a.m...

“Richard?” she mumbled sleepily.

The door to her bedroom opened, and Major Charles gently poked his head around it. “Didn’t mean to wake you,” he apologised.

He looked tired and serious.

“Busy night?” she asked carefully.

He wandered over, clutching a mug of steaming cocoa, and sat on the edge of the bed next to her. “Good news,” he said. “Your friend has finally reappeared. Fit and well by all accounts.”

Shaz pushed herself up into a sitting position. “Really?” she asked, tugging at the straps of her tangled nightie.

Sentinel nodded, then looked serious again.

“I suspect there’s more,” she said carefully, her excitement at the news fading as she examined his expression.

“Always,” he said simply.

“Another mission?” she asked.

“I couldn’t possibly say,” he replied.

“You never can,” she countered, and reached over to commandeer his mug for herself. “Thanks for letting me know... about Nick. I’ve been worried.”

“I know you have,” he said kindly and wandered back out to the kitchen to make himself another drink.

~~~~~

Skala Kallonis

Jack sighed deeply as he rode the motorbike back toward his little villa. It stood there in front of him, a bright patch of welcoming sanctuary at the top of its gentle slope. He couldn’t remember it ever looking so well tended. Bedecked in carefully trimmed flowers, with clean windows, and neatly organised furniture, it looked like a real home and, for the first time, not just a place to hide. It had been Nick’s influence. He knew that.

He’d been down to the village to call in. He wasn’t going to fire up his cellphone here.

He pulled off the road, and steered the vehicle into the largish, freestanding, wooden barn he used as a garage, parked up, and strode across the open grass to the veranda.

“They’re not wasting any time,” he reported as brightly as he could muster.

Nick looked up at him from one of the wicker chairs. Coal black eyes piercing. Uneasy. Questioning. Cutting into him.

“Deuce is coming here to meet us,” he continued quickly.

“Here?” Nick grunted suspiciously. Only the locals, Nick and Jack knew about this safe haven. Jack wanted to keep it that way. Nick understood this. Only people he could trust would ever know about it. That was his rule.

“I’ve arranged to meet him near the airport in Mytilene,” he explained. “He won’t find out where this place is.”

Nick nodded and seemed to relax slightly.

Jack lifted the cellphone. “Ace just told me that he’s already on his way, and will be here later this afternoon.”

“I’d better go and get myself sorted out then,” said Nick flatly. “Make sure he recognises me.”

Jack smiled ruefully. “You better had,” he said.

~~~~~

London

Greere glanced across, from the Top Secret PSO Mission Instruction he was preparing for the base commander in Cyprus, to the spare terminal set up in the corner of the office. He wasn’t sure why he kept looking across at it. He knew it wouldn’t refresh again for anywhere between eighteen and thirty-six hours.

The final bug, buried in Ebrahimi’s skin, showed as a steady red dot, static in the midst of the screen’s satellite image of chaotic dwellings near the Tomb of Sultan Agha in the southwest outskirts of Herat. Frozen at its last known location.

For all of the tracer’s tiny dimensions, it was a very smart device. Having waited patiently for many weeks, highly shielded, and eating bare micro-watts of energy, it had now seen its specific key-code and its own instructions to begin reporting its location to its masters. This was its most discrete protocol – one random outbound ping and a less than one-second sweep for command updates per forty-eight hour window. The rest of the time it would lie completely dormant. Conserving its strength for when it needed to signal more frequently.

Sentinel had agreed that they activate it as soon as he heard that Tin and Mercury had made contact. Greere and Ellard had waited, with increasing concern, for much of the previous evening until the satellite had finally, after midnight, swept eastward far enough for the device to receive its wake-up call.

“They’re almost home,” Ellard had observed calmly.

“Almost but not quite,” Greere had agreed. “I’ll see if Sentinel thinks he can find a way to get the nearby border posts put on high alert.”

A series of nondescript interagency and military bulletins had been posted and propagated across Europe throughout the night, while Greere and Ellard worked on transit options for Tin and Mercury, and the Lakatut to Tawraghudi stretch of border between Turkmenistan and Afghanistan was now feverishly working to prepare itself for anything ranging from a suicide bomb attack to herds of fleeing refugees. Ebrahimi, at least, would not be able to cross easily. Greere very much suspected, and hoped, that Nagpal was with him and was therefore equally stuck.

It would be so much better for him, if his assets could deal with both of them at the same time.

No loose ends.

No need for him to get his hands dirty.