Hellfire (42 page)

Caitlin grabbed a fresh flannel from the side of the sink, soaked it in tap water, then crammed it into Mustafa’s bleeding mouth. He tried to cry out, but the sound was muffled and pathetic. Caitlin slipped her hand into the inside pocket of his jacket and withdrew his wallet. It took her just a few seconds to pull out an ID card and a picture of two small kids that the driver obviously carried everywhere with him. Very cute, a boy and a girl.

An image of Clara, pregnant, flashed across Danny’s brain. He pushed it to one side. He couldn’t think about that. He knew what was coming.

Caitlin held the pictures up in front of Mustafa’s eyes. ‘I’m going to torture you now,’ she said bluntly. ‘If I don’t get what I want, I’m going to kill you, then I’m going to go after your family.’ She waved the ID card. ‘I know where you live.’

Mustafa’s muffled squeaking instantly stopped. Danny and Tony exchanged an approving glance. Tony was obviously as impressed as Danny was.

‘Put his head back,’ Caitlin said, as she took the shower attachment in her hand. Danny forced the heel of his hand under Mustafa’s chin, forcing his head back at an angle, while Caitlin turned the hot tap on and directed the flow through the shower attachment. Without hesitating, she sprayed the scalding water over Mustafa’s upturned face.

The chauffeur’s body arched suddenly. His arms and legs flailed and he tried to inhale. Bad move: there was a sucking sound as he drew more boiling water into his nostrils. The panicked flailing of his body increased – so much so that Tony had to lend his weight to keeping him as immobile as possible.

Ten seconds passed. Danny knew that ten seconds of drowning could feel like an hour. Caitlin moved the shower attachment so the scalding water was now soaking his abdomen. The blood on his face, which had been washed away, immediately started oozing again from his lips and nose. She pulled the flannel out of his mouth. He made a terrible retching sound, then vomited up a quantity of faintly pink water that he’d sucked in through his nose.

‘Who was it?’ Danny repeated.

Mustafa’s eyes rolled. ‘You don’t understand,’ he whispered, ‘what the Caliph will do if . . .’

He didn’t finish. Caitlin had shoved the flannel back in his mouth. She moved the shower attachment back to his face.

Twenty seconds this time. The flailing started strongly, but grew a good deal weaker. When Caitlin moved the shower attachment again, Danny momentarily worried that they’d gone too far. He pulled out the flannel and Mustafa made another retching sound. His eyes flickered open as he vomited water for a second time.

‘Please . . .’ he whispered. ‘I’ll talk . . .
please
 . . .’

‘You just need to give me a name,’ Danny said. ‘Then it stops.’

Mustafa closed his eyes. ‘It was . . . it was my friend Rashed,’ he whispered.

Caitlin immediately turned the water off. ‘There,’ she said. ‘That wasn’t so difficult, was it?’

Two minutes later they were back in the room. Ahmed, sitting on the sofa, stared at his soaked, bleeding chauffeur in horror. ‘What did you do to him?’ he asked, clearly aghast.

‘Persuasion,’ Tony said.

‘What does Rashed have to do with the Caliph?’ Danny demanded.

Mustafa hesitated and looked away, but then caught sight of Caitlin standing by the door. The sight of his tormentor made him shudder, and he looked resolutely back at Danny, as if that were a safer option, though his eyes did flicker nervously towards Ahmed.

‘You may speak without fear of sanction from me,’ Ahmed said.

‘There are people who act as the Caliph’s eyes and ears,’ Mustafa said. ‘We do not know who all of them are, but I have known for many months that Rashed is one of them. I thought . . .’ He bowed his head. ‘I thought that by mentioning your conversation with the British man to him, it would mean my family were safe.’

A silence fell on the room. Danny stepped towards the mirrored coffee table, where the photographs of Ahmed’s parents were lying upside down. He turned them over and laid them out in front of Mustafa. ‘Look at them,’ he told the chauffeur.

For a moment, he thought Mustafa was going to vomit again as his eyes fell on the horrific scenes.

‘That’s the Caliph’s work,’ Danny said. ‘It’s what he did to your boss’s family. Now listen to me carefully: it’s the easiest thing in the world for me to arrange a large sum of money to land in your bank from an account linked to British intelligence. If you fail to do exactly what I tell you, I’ll make sure Rashed knows you’ve been working for the West, informing on the Caliph. When
that
happens,
this
happens to your family. Understood?’

Mustafa closed his eyes and nodded.

‘You’re going to call Rashed now. You’re going tell him that your boss is terrified, and that he wants to make a donation of a hundred million dollars to the Caliph’s cause. That he wants to meet him and make his peace with him. Do you get that?’

Again, Mustafa nodded, but he looked sick with fear.

‘Black,’ Buckingham said. He was standing on the far side of the room, his hands behind his back and his lips tight. ‘A word.’

Danny looked over at him. ‘Not now,’ he said.

‘Fine.’ Buckingham stepped forward. ‘Then we’ll discuss it in front of everyone. Let’s ignore for the moment the fact that you’re overstepping your authority. Do you
really
expect the Caliph to believe that this is anything other than a clumsy and obvious trap?’

Danny felt all eyes on him. And from the way Tony and Caitlin were looking at him, he could tell they agreed with the MI6 man.

He met Buckingham’s stare full-on. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t.’

‘Then why the bloody hell do you think this is a reasonable course of action?’

Danny looked at the others in turn. ‘Here’s what we know about the Caliph,’ he said, his voice calm and measured. ‘He’s a fundamentalist. He’s homicidal. He’s probably psychotic. He’s a control freak. People like that have vanity. They like to think that they’ve got the better of powerful men, like Ahmed. Plus, he won’t want to miss out on a hundred million dollars. You can buy yourself a 9/11 with that kind of cash. Or worse.’ He fixed Buckingham with a cool stare. ‘Of
course
he’ll suspect it’s a trap,’ he said. ‘But a little part of him will be thinking: what if it’s not? And that’s what we need to exploit. Whoever he sends to the RV, I’ll bet money that they’ll know how to reach him. He might even come himself. We’ve two SF units on standby in Bahrain, one SBS, one SAS. Nobody’s going to get past them. When the time comes, we’ll have them in place. If the Caliph shows, we’ll have the muscle to apprehend him. If he sends a lieutenant, we’ll be one step closer to the main man. Anyone got a better idea?’

The only sound in the room was Mustafa’s heavy breathing. Outside it was almost completely light. Danny looked at his watch. 09.30 hrs. That made it 07.30 in London. In a little over twenty-four hours, the starting gun for the marathon would sound. Already, tens of thousands of people would be making their way into the capital. Danny and his unit had one throw of the dice. If this didn’t work, the outcome would be too terrible to think about.

He looked at Mustafa. ‘We’re going to get in touch with London,’ he said. ‘I’m going to tell them what we know. Then you’re going to make the call.’

The operations room in the basement of the MI6 building was suddenly ablaze with activity. At the centre of it all was Daniel Bixby, his head leaning as it always did against the padded headrest of his wheelchair, but his tired eyes intense. The Chief stood next to him, chewing the nail on his right thumb. He said nothing. He’d lost control. Proceedings were up to Bixby now.

‘GCHQ?’ Bixby demanded.

‘Online, sir,’ one of his men shouted. ‘They have a satellite trace on Mustafa’s phone.’

‘Are they ready to get a fix on Rashed’s mobile?’

‘Roger that, sir.’

‘Translator?’

A pleasant-faced young man of Middle Eastern appearance sitting at a table five metres away raised his hand. He was wearing a set of headphones, though only one ear was covered, and had a notepad and pencil in front of him.

‘Hereford?’

A voice crackled over a nearby loudspeaker. ‘
We’re in contact with Bravo Nine Delta unit. They’re standing by for your permission to go ahead.
’

‘Everybody ready?’ Bixby demanded. There was no suggestion to the contrary, so he gave the instruction. ‘Make the call.’

‘
Make the call.
’

Danny had his phone pressed to his ear, an open line to Hereford HQ. He could hear the tension in Ray Hammond’s voice, and could feel it in his own chest.

‘Roger that.’

Mustafa’s iPhone lay on the mirrored table. Mustafa himself was cradling his broken fingers, and fresh blood was still dripping from his mouth where Tony had ripped his tooth out. Danny had kept the photos of Ahmed’s parents upturned to keep his mind focused, but in fact, all Mustafa’s terrified attention was on the phone itself. ‘Unlock it,’ Danny told him. The chauffeur winced as he pressed his bloodied thumb to the start button. A wallpaper picture of Mustafa with two small children disappeared. ‘Bring up Rashed’s number, put it on loudspeaker, then dial,’ Danny told him.

The chauffeur did as he was told. The sound of a dialling tone filled the room, then beeping tones of a number being dialled.

A pause.

Rashed’s phone started to ring.

Three times.

A dry voice answered in Arabic. Mustafa licked his bloody lips, then spoke hesitantly.

‘Rashed?’

The sound of the phone call filled the ops room at MI6. Three rings, then a distant voice.

‘
Rashed?
’

Bixby’s Arabic was good, but the translator spoke above the conversation, converting it into English in a flat, expressionless voice for the benefit of those, like the Chief, who couldn’t understand it.

‘
Who’s this?
’

‘
It’s me. Mustafa.
’

‘
I’m at work. What do you want?
’

‘
I need to get a message to our friend.
’

‘
What makes you think our friend would want a message from you?
’

There was a pause of ten seconds. Bixby and the Chief exchanged an anxious glance. The voice of Mustafa cleared its throat nervously before speaking again. But when the translator converted the conversation into English, he continued with his previous lack of expression.

‘
Mr Al-Essa is scared. He won’t leave his apartment.
’

‘
That will teach him to have a loose tongue.
’

‘
He wants to make our friend a peace offering. Rashed, it is a lot of money. I think the . . . I think our friend will be interested.
’

‘
How much money?
’

‘
A hundred . . . a hundred million.
’

There was another pause. Bixby swallowed nervously.

‘
In return for what?
’

‘
Mr Al-Essa’s safety.
’

There was a barking, cynical laugh.

‘
So you will contact him?
’

Bixby hissed quietly. Mustafa sounded too eager. Too jumpy. He sensed Rashed had picked up on it, because there was another long pause.

‘
Maybe. Stay by your phone.
’

A click. The line when dead.

Instantly, Bixby raised his voice. ‘Get on to GCHQ,’ he announced. ‘I want to know if they got a trace on Rashed’s phone.’

A murmur of voices from the other side of the room. Then, out loud: ‘That’s a negative, sir. Rashed’s line was fully encrypted. We can’t locate it.’

Bixby swore. ‘All we can do now is wait,’ he told his boss.

Danny had a little Arabic, but not enough to have understood the conversation. He had to judge by the sound of Mustafa’s voice whether the conversation was heading the way he wanted it. Rashed had sounded as hesitant as Mustafa. Hard to distinguish the tone of a different language, but Danny thought he sounded suspicious.

Now the conversation was over, Mustafa was profusely sweating.

‘Well?’ Danny demanded.

It was Buckingham who answered. ‘I don’t think Rashed bought it. He told Mustafa to wait by his phone, but he sounded very edgy.’

Ahmed stood up. He looked as though he had aged several years in the past hour. ‘You will excuse me?’ he said mildly. ‘This meeting could take place at any time. I have arrangements to make.’

Danny shook his head. ‘You’re not leaving this apartment,’ he said.

Ahmed nodded towards the door into his bedroom. Danny turned to Tony. ‘Check there are no other exits through there,’ he said.