State of Attack (39 page)
Authors: Gary Haynes
In a clearing about a hundred yards to the left, Tom saw a red car parked sideways in a clearing. It looked like a Citroën. He checked it with his day scope. There was a middle-aged man in the driver’s seat, a woman of the same age sat next to him. Picnickers, or lovers, he guessed.
Tom sprinted ahead. If the murderer reached them he might be able to get to the car, disable the driver and make his escape.
As the man got to within twenty yards of the nearside bank, Tom figured he was maybe a hundred feet away. The effective range of the MP5A2 was over six times that distance. It fired over eight hundred and fifty rounds a minute. He figured with luck he only needed one. He knelt and aimed for man’s right leg just as his left leg was cocking over what he took for a barbed-wire fence.
The round hit the man in the back of his thigh, sending him to the ground. Checking he was still immobilized, Tom stood up and began running down the slope. He heard the Citroën’s engine starting up and the car accelerating away, the tyres kicking up a grass and mud.
As he got to within a few yards of the man, he saw that he was lying face down in the mud, the back of his thigh seeping blood from a quarter-inch entry hole in his blue jeans. He was groaning, his left ankle tangled in the wire like a trapped animal. Tom knew the seriousness of a leg shot. Most people bleed out quickly. This man wouldn’t be any different. But he wanted answers. A Glock 9mm handgun was a foot away from the man’s right hand.
He didn’t know if the man had a concealed weapon so he bent and picked up a long stick. He walked over to the man and prodded him in the leg wound. As the man howled in pain, Tom grabbed his shoulder and flipped him over.
Tom grimaced. He grunted through clenched teeth and tightened his fist.
It was Ibrahim.
After the initial shock, Tom decided that he still wanted answers. He said, “You can die now, here like this, or you can let the virus take its lethal course. I don’t really care. But unless you want to be remembered as the jihadist that killed a helpless old couple, you’ll start talking.”
Ibrahim grinned, even though he was in obvious pain. “That’s how your press will tell it, whatever happens here between us. But tell me something, and I’ll do likewise. How did you know I was in your house?”
Tom thought about it, thought it might get the jihadist talking. “The fish,” Tom said.
“The fish?”
“They’re timid. They see someone, they disappear. But I always see them disappear. They leave a ripple behind. There wasn’t one. When they’re spooked they don’t come out for twenty minutes. They’d already disappeared.”
Ibrahim laughed then moaned long and hard. “You’re telling me that this all failed because of some fish?”
“Yeah. I figured whoever had spooked them had to be still in the house, and that they’d been in the study because that’s the window with a view of the track up here. You saw me driving up and you went upstairs. Why did you come here?”
“You killed my wife and brother-in-law.”
He told Tom that Al-Shabaab had infiltrated the Somali military and security forces. He got a tipoff that two American agents were heading up the north-west coast. He thought there was a vague chance that they knew something, although he didn’t know how. What he did know was that he couldn’t stay with his wife and had stayed instead in a small village thirty miles away. They met halfway during the day. He asked her brother to stay with her just in case.
“I didn’t order the drone strike,” Tom said. “Way above my pay grade.”
“You could have saved her,” Ibrahim said.
“You could have put the old couple in my basement instead of murdering them. You’re carrying something that coulda killed thousands.”
“It’s a war.”
“You make war on your own people.”
Ibrahim laughed again. “American people aren’t my people. They’re the enemy of my people. But you know that, don’t you?”
Tom heard the sound of fast-approaching sirens and guessed the car driver had called 911.
“It’s almost over,” Tom said.
“Why did you push so hard?” Ibrahim said.
“My father was General Dupont.”
Realization etched on Ibrahim’s face. “Different names… I didn’t know.”
Tom saw Ibrahim looking over at the Glock on the ground.
“Give it to me,” he said.
“Not a chance.”
Ibrahim struggled to raise his right arm and twisted it, showing Tom the faint triangle of scars.
“You have your man. Mission accomplished. Now let me finish it my way.”
“Isn’t that against your religion?”
“Allah is the Master of the Day of Judgment. He knows my heart. And I am dead already. Are you afraid I might shoot you? I won’t. You think I want to be in a cage? You think I want to be paraded before the unbelievers? I don’t.”
Ibrahim coughed blood then. He spat it out. Tom saw him straining to breathe.
“You didn’t save my loved ones, so I killed yours. I knew your mother had died and now have no other family. It’s fitting between us, is it not?”
“Are there any other jihadists who are contaminated? Tell me the truth. I want your word as a Muslim on it.”
“No. My word on it.”
Tom slung the MP5 over his shoulder. He moved forwards and, bending down, he picked up the Glock. He released the clip and thumb out the rounds, leaving just one in the chamber. He bent down again and put the weapon into Ibrahim’s hand. He stepped back.
He didn’t know exactly why he’d acceded to Ibrahim’s request. But in some vague way, he felt he owed him for what had happened to his wife. Besides, he believed him when he’d said that there weren’t any other contaminated jihadists.
He saw Ibrahim staring at him. As he raised the Glock and rested the muzzle against his temple, Tom turned around and began walking in the direction of his house. He heard the single shot three seconds later and knew he didn’t have to turn back.
Ibrahim’s war was over, and with it, the Silent Jihad.
The funeral of Tom’s father had been a pristine military affair replete with dress uniforms and volleys from carbines. Tom had accepted the folded flag from the Vice President of the United States. If the general had had a partner, she hadn’t turned up. Truth be told, if it hadn’t been for a few old comrades and the official White House and Pentagon parties, Tom would have been able to count the attendees on one hand.
He’d seen Crane there and they’d agreed to meet up when he came back from his vacation. He’d said that Gabriel had survived in Beirut, and he and the other two CIA paramilitaries were on their way home, after an undisclosed payment had been made, which was classified. The bodies of the fallen would be flown home, too.
Tom had spoken with the Secretary of State, Linda Carlyle, who had embraced him and had said how sorry she was and what a fine man the general had been, a true patriot.
After a respectable time, Tom had walked away from the others, over to a small copse of white birch trees. The sun had been at its highest point and a small bird he hadn’t been able to name had been perched on a low-lying branch and he’d heard it sing its melancholic song, like a dirge for his dead father. He’d felt cheated that he’d not been able to spend the time with him that his father had wanted. With that a great sense of emptiness had engulfed him.
He’d seen Lester walking over to him and had remembered that they’d agreed to go to lunch and drink a bottle of Jack together. He’d be attending the joint funeral of Gerry and Helen in a couple of days’ time and if there had been any other time when he’d needed to drink too much, he hadn’t been able to remember it.
Two hours later, Tom and Lester were ushered to a secluded booth, with a white tablecloth, by a grinning middle-aged Vietnamese woman dressed in an expensive-looking pink dress. She handed them wine-red menus embossed with gold dragons and asked them if they wanted a drink. Lester said a bottle of Jack Daniels and two crystal glasses with heavy bases and she didn’t even blink. Tom figured it was maybe the black suits and neckties they were still wearing and she’d guessed they’d been to a funeral, or maybe thought they were gangsters.
He looked up from the menu at a collection of framed photographs hanging on the gold wallpaper. Ancient sites and seascapes mostly, including, he noticed, the Hue royal tombs and the Halong islands. At the other end of the restaurant what looked like an African delegation in traditional, colour-splashed costumes were laughing loudly, and the woman in the pink dress was marshalling a group of young waitresses in long dresses as they brought over dozens of white plates of food.
“The food’s delicious here, Tom,” Lester said.
Tom placed the menu down. “You order for me, huh?”
“Sure. Hey, you’re okay, yeah?”
Tom nodded. “How’s your brother doin’?” he said, knowing Lester had employed him a couple of months back.
“Useful as a cat flap on a submarine, but he’s family, right?”
Tom smiled then. He had no family now. But if a man could choose his family, Lester would be at the top if his list, no question.
He saw Lester looking at him, his bright eyes full of compassion.
“I love you, Tom. You know that, don’t ya? I ain’t no poet but I grieve for ya, man. I feel your pain as if it was my own.”
For the first time since his mother had been murdered, Tom felt tears behind his eyes. He hit the table with his fist. “Course I do. Where’s that damn bottle of Jack?”
CARINA™
ISBN: 978-1-474-03072-4
State of Attack
Copyright © 2015 Gary Haynes
Published in Great Britain (2015)
by Carina, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
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