Gray Redemption (Tom Gray #3) (11 page)

“How was your journey?”

“Fine,” Mansour said as he
accepted the offer of tea, though fine was being generous.  Once he’d
received news that his lieutenant, Nabil Shah, had been killed on Jolo, Mansour
had made his way home from Indonesia.  He had spent most of the journey on
a fishing vessel and it had been several days before he’d stopped throwing
up.  Even now he wondered if the smell would ever leave him.

“I am glad you are back, my
friend.  Tell me about your latest mission.”

Mansour explained how he’d
delivered the weapons and money to the Abu Sayyaf leader and provided training
in their use, but as for the attack itself, he only knew what the television
and newspapers had reported.  Over a hundred American and Filipino
soldiers had been killed in the firefight at Camp Bautista, although Abu Sayyaf
had lost a couple of hundred men in a reprisal attack immediately afterwards.

As for the overall mission, he
had convinced the leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah — Abu Sayyaf’s Indonesian
counterparts — to enter into talks aimed at creating a Muslim alliance. 
The promise of more weapons and money had been extended to the Indonesians,
with a view to them controlling most of maritime South-East Asia.

“You have done Allah a great
service,” Al-Asiri told him.  “However, the fight must continue at
pace.  Tell me, how would you feel about going back to England one last
time?”

“I will go wherever you ask,”
Mansour said with heartfelt conviction.

“As I thought,” his master
smiled as he leaned back into his chair.  “Your mission will be to simply
provide training to a new group of martyrs.  You will not be exposed to
danger yourself.”

“What do they need to know?”

“You will show them how to
create explosive devices.  These are young men who have not come under the
scrutiny of the security services, and to use the internet for their research
would be to wave a red flag at a bull.”

“How can we be sure that they
are not being watched?”  Mansour asked.  “The last thing we should do
is underestimate our enemies.”

“I have people with access to
this information,” Al-Asiri said confidently.  To his lasting regret, he
hadn’t been able to get anyone into the security services themselves, but there
were other agencies that were party to certain information, and airline no-fly
and watch lists were just two ways of knowing if MI5 were interested in an
individual.

“What would you have them
attack?” 

“There are multiple targets
across the UK,” Al-Asiri told him.  “In addition, co-ordinated attacks
will take place in the US and Canada.  Timing will be of the utmost
importance.”

“Are these military targets, or
infrastructure?”  Mansour asked, intrigued.

“Sperm banks,” Al-Asiri said,
and smiled at Mansour’s confused expression.

“I’m sorry, I do not
understand.  How will this further the cause?”

Al-Asiri explained how his
research team had developed a virus that would kill off Y chromosome sperm, and
spelled out his vision for the future.  “The next generation of British
and American children will be predominately female, which in years to come will
reduce their fighting capability.  The small percentage of males born will
carry the new gene, which means the cycle continues in ever decreasing
circles.  The only chance to produce male offspring is through
inter-racial breeding.”

Mansour looked at Al-Asiri and
did well to hide his true feelings.  His facial expression portrayed
fascination, but inside he began to wonder if the old man had gone completely
mad.

“You plan to breed them out of
existence?”

“Exactly,” Al-Asiri told
him.  “In a hundred years, America and Britain as we know them will be
nothing more than a page in the history books.  Our Muslim influence will
spread throughout their lands until ultimately the whole world kneels before
Allah!”

Mansour had to marvel at the
audacity of the plan, but it was flawed on so many fundamental levels. 

“How many sperm banks are there
in the UK and US?”  He asked, hoping his master would recognise the scale
of the operation he was proposing.

“Many hundreds,” Al-Asiri told
him, “but we do not need to destroy them all.  We have a website ready to
go live, and it will proclaim the formation of the Campaign for Natural Birth.
It is a fictitious Christian organisation seeking the abolition of
medically-assisted pregnancy on the grounds that it is God alone who decides
the birth of every child.

“We will bomb a small number of
sperm banks in each country and CNB will claim responsibility for these
actions, warning that more attacks will come unless they are closed down. 
They will also claim that anyone donating to one of these banks makes
themselves a viable target.”

Mansour could see the sense in
that approach, and if nothing else it would tie up the security services in
both countries for quite some time.  Nevertheless, he still had major
concerns about the overall plan, and he wasn’t sure how much criticism he could
level at his master’s idea.

 “That still leaves them
with a very large stock pile.  I’m not sure these efforts will deliver the
results you are looking for.  I am also concerned that the bombers will
give away the fact that a Christian group wasn’t actually behind the attacks.”

“That is why you are here,”
Al-Asiri told him, his demeanour a lot less convivial than moments
earlier.  “I have given you the tools and explained the effect I wish to
achieve.  It is now up to you to make it work.”

Mansour sat in silence, the
enormity of the task weighing heavily on his shoulders.  His rise through
the Al-Qaeda ranks had been meteoric, but fail this mission and all of his
efforts would have been in vain. 

Al-Asiri saw the blank, almost
pained expression on his general’s face and offered a powerful incentive. 
“As you know, since the Sheik died and I took over his mantle, I delayed in
filling the vacant place on the inner council. There was a reason for
this. 

“I have been watching you
develop over the years, and your commitment to the cause, your courage and
skill all point to you one day making a great leader.”

Al-Asiri paused to let the words
sink in.  “Complete this mission and take your place on the council.”

Mansour’s excitement was
tempered by his concerns over Al-Asiri’s mental state.  He had hoped to
one day become a regional commander, but he’d envisaged that being many years
in the future.  To have it handed to him on a plate at such a tender age
was a blessing from Allah himself, though it meant being led by a man who was
obviously cartwheeling towards senility. 

The seed of a plan popped into
Mansour’s head, one that would need to be nurtured, but for the time being he
gave his leader the reaction he desired.

“Of course I will take on the
challenge,” he smiled.  “Tell me what plans you already have in place.”

Chapter
7

Friday
May 4th 2012

“I’m bored!”

Alana Levine sat with her arms
folded, staring at the caravan floor. “Wish I could have brought my iPhone.”

Her father was drying dishes in
the tiny kitchen area and he slammed down the cup in his hand, smashing it into
a dozen pieces.  “How many times do I have to tell you?”  He snarled.

Sandra Levine grabbed her
husband by the arm.  “Carl, leave her alone.  What do you expect from
a thirteen-year-old?”

Carl Levine took a couple of
deep breaths before gathering up the shards of porcelain and dumping them in
the trash.  After getting a look from his wife he went to sit next to his
daughter and put an arm around her shoulder.

“I’m sorry, darling, but we
couldn’t bring anything that could be traced, I told you that.”

“I know, but I could use it to
just play games,” Alana pouted, bottom lip thrust out like a diving board.

Levine sighed.  He had been
through this a dozen times, explaining how SIM cards could be tracked even when
the phone was not in use, and that even without the card it might be possible
for those with the right technology to locate the device.

“I’ll make it up to you when
this is all over, I promise.”

“But when will that be?” 
She asked.

Carl Levine didn’t have an
answer to that one.  A year earlier he had a schedule to keep to, but this
time it was simply a case of waiting to hear from his friends.  He didn’t
have any way of communicating with the outside world, and all the money they
had was being spent on food and fuel.  While they still had a few hundred
pounds between them, the money wasn’t going to last forever.  It was a
blessing that the caravan they were staying in was owned outright by Tom Gray’s
solicitor and the ground rent was being paid by direct
debit,
otherwise their finances would be stretched even further.

“Hopefully not too long,” Levine
said. 

“Is it going to be like last
time, with the reporters hanging round the house and school?”

Levine promised her that it
wouldn’t be a repeat of the previous year, when the press had camped outside
their house for a fortnight in the hope of a story.  They had even tried
to interview his daughter as she entered the school grounds, and the following
day he had escorted her to the entrance of the school building.  On
leaving the playground he’d stopped to speak to the press, but not to give then
the story they’d hoped for.  Reading from a prepared statement, he’d given
them what he considered their final warning.

“Yesterday, several members of
the press tried to manhandle and harass my daughter into giving them an
interview, something I, as her father, find deeply offensive.  I reported
this matter to the police and asked them to provide her with an escort every
day but they say they don’t have the resources, despite my insisting that
adults were laying their hands on my vulnerable child.

“As the police refuse to do
anything about this situation, I will be forced to take the matter into my own
hands should anyone try to interfere with my daughter on her way to or from
school, using all force necessary to protect my child.”

Levine smiled as he remembered
that statement going out on all the news channels, with commentators asking why
the police were leaving a twelve-year-old girl to the mercy of a mob of
reporters, and the anchors quick to point out that none of the reporters worked
for their particular franchise.  Within a few hours a police escort was
arranged for the next few days until the media eventually gave up their
efforts.

“I’m sure it won’t be like last
time,” he told her, even though he himself had no idea how it was going to play
out.  He kissed his daughter on the head and went back to his kitchen
duties.

“I think she’s missing her
friends,” his wife said, and Levine could quite understand.  It wasn’t
easy for him, sharing a small space with not only his wife and daughter, but
Jeff Campbell and his wife, too. For Alana, it must be doubly difficult,
especially with no company her own age to keep her occupied.

He once again hoped that
whatever was happening, it would be over soon, for his daughter’s sake if
nothing else.  When the call had come, the last thing on his mind had been
creature comforts, and he certainly hadn’t been expecting to be holed up in
this tiny box for more than a couple of days.  It was now approaching two
weeks, and he still no idea why they had been told to go into hiding.

Campbell was just as concerned,
highlighting the fact that during their enforced holiday they hadn’t been
mentioned on the BBC news channel.  That suggested the police weren’t the
ones they were hiding from, but if not the police, then who?

Following the attack a year
earlier, and with Tom Gray lying critically injured in hospital, they had been
briefed by a representative of the Home Office.  He’d explained that the knowledge
they had regarding the whole affair — the fact that no bomb existed and that
Tom Gray hadn’t actually killed any of his hostages — could be highly
embarrassing to the government if it were ever leaked.  In return for
their silence, the government would allow Tom Gray to be spirited away with a
new identity and the six survivors would face no criminal proceedings.

Levine and the others had been
given a few minutes to consider the proposal, and on face value it seemed an
acceptable offer.  It meant staying out of prison, and keeping their
mouths shut was second nature to members of Two-Two Regiment.

It wasn’t until a couple of days
later that they had gotten together and discussed some of the less favourable
scenarios, and it was then that they realised what they had signed up
for.  The knowledge they held was always going to be
damaging,
be it to the current government or future ones, and all that stood between
complete secrecy and a national security fiasco was their individual
integrity. 

In effect, they were relying on
the government to trust six men who had only a few days earlier held the
country to ransom.

Following that epiphany they had
promised each other that if one of them were to disappear or die under
suspicious circumstances, the others would take their stories to every
available media outlet.  The death of Tristram Barker-Fink in Iraq had
been a shock to them all, but there was no way they could blame that on anyone
but the terrorists who took out the convoy he was travelling in.  A few
weeks after Tristram’s death, Paul Bennett’s followed, crashing his motorbike
at high speed.  Independent witnesses saw his tyre explode while he doing
more than eighty miles per hour, with no other cars within fifty feet of
him.  The police report also cited mechanical failure as the reason for
the crash, the tyre having blown out.

Both of these losses were put
down to misfortune, but since they got the call to go into hiding, they were
beginning to have second thoughts.