Osama (5 page)

The dog looked up. With a sensation like cold ice sliding down his spine, Joe realized the animal was looking in his direction. It tilted its head and scampered over the body. Two seconds later it was inches from Joe’s hiding place, its wet nose worming its way into the crack in the wall. He could smell the rank stench of its breath.

The dog sniffed.

A low growl escaped its throat.

Joe’s hand moved slowly to the holster on his chest rig, his fingertips feeling for the Sig.

A harsh voice. American. ‘Cairo! Cairo!’

Joe saw a hand grab the dog’s collar and pull it away. Its handler came into view. The SEAL looked young, most likely no more than twenty. He had a lean face and pronounced cheekbones, but there was a small scar on his upper lip, which looked slightly out of shape – a harelip that had been fixed surgically, Joe reckoned. The soldier pulled Cairo out of Joe’s field of view, which meant he could see the whole courtyard again.

The six SEALs were standing but kept their weapons trained on the house while another eight soldiers started to extract, as did the two who were guarding the main security gate. Thirty seconds later the final six hurried from the courtyard. Joe could hear the undamaged Black Hawk returning to the ground, ready to lift them out.

Joe was drenched in sweat, and not just because of the heat. He remained absolutely still for thirty seconds after the last SEAL had passed by him. Only then did he creep out of his OP. Ricky was still hidden, fully obscured by the darkness, his back up against the concrete slab behind which he had secreted himself. Joe edged towards the opposite side of the corridor, and peered round the damaged wall. He squinted as the choppers’ lights blinded him, but he was able to make out the second of the two body bags being loaded into the unharmed Black Hawk. Three SEALs were running from the compromised chopper to the intact one; ten seconds later the LZ was deserted and the frequency of the helicopter’s engines became a little higher as it prepared to take off.

Joe’s stomach knotted. They were abandoning the second chopper. He knew what that meant. To leave a military asset on enemy territory was a no-no at the best of times. And when the asset in question was a stealth chopper, and the enemy was Al-Qaeda . . .

‘It’s going to blow, brudder.’

Ricky was standing half a metre behind him.

Joe grabbed his arm. ‘Fucking run . . .’

The two men were ten metres from the main gates through which they’d entered the compound when the undamaged chopper rose above the walls again; and they were only two metres away from the gates, alongside the body of the man Joe had killed outside the compound and which Ricky had dragged inside, when the explosions came: a succession of short, sharp detonations, followed by a single, much larger one that made the walls shake and threw Joe to the ground. He jumped up immediately to see Ricky already throwing himself at the gates, knocking up the latch with his M4 just as a shower of dust and shrapnel started to rain down all around them. They hurled themselves out of the compound as a twisted chunk of what was once a helicopter slammed into the meat of the fresh corpse; then both men covered their heads and ran across the narrow dirt road, out of range of the debris that was still showering down.

‘What the hell?’ Joe almost screamed.

But Ricky was looking back towards the compound. A bright orange glow was emanating from inside the walls where the downed chopper was burning. The second Black Hawk was already thirty metres in the air, and swerving in their direction. It thundered overhead and headed north-west, into the distance.

Ricky was refusing to catch Joe’s eye. ‘Let’s get back,’ he said tersely.

Without a word, they ran thirty metres back east along the road to their original OP, where the owner of the house was still tied up on the first floor, trying to breathe slowly as his body shook with fear. It didn’t take more than a minute for them to gather their things – the tripod and the optics – and don their robes once more. Ricky was heading for the door again; Joe had stopped stock still.

The two friends stared at each other.

‘What?’ Ricky demanded.

Joe didn’t answer. He strode over to their captive and ripped the tape from his nose, though he left him blindfolded, silenced and bound. Only then did he follow Ricky to the doorway.

‘You’re out of control, mucker.’

Five seconds of silence.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Ricky retorted, his chin jutting aggressively. ‘You gonna go squealing to the frickin’ ruperts?’ But his friend knew how insulting that suggestion was: Joe sneered at him.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ Joe said. He pushed past Ricky and started running down the stairs. By the time they hit the street again, the Black Hawk had long disappeared into the night sky, but now there was the sound of alarmed citizens shouting from an easterly direction – from the centre of Abbottabad. Joe was confident he and Ricky looked enough like locals, especially in the darkness, not to attract any attention, especially when there was so much else for the townsfolk to ogle back at the compound. But that was no reason to lower his guard: he kept one hand firmly on the handle of his Sig as they made their way back into the town, keeping in the shadows, to RV with the rest of the unit.

And Joe’s mind was turning over. What had Ricky been trying to prove? It happened sometimes that a guy lost his nerve and tried to make up for it by putting himself in danger. But Ricky didn’t seem the type.

Something else was troubling Joe too. Something he had seen. Why had the SEALs removed two bodies from the compound? Target Geronimo was one thing – he understood that they couldn’t just leave his corpse where it lay – but what reason could they have to remove another stiff?? It occurred to him that maybe they had nailed a kid and needed to remove the body to avoid a PR disaster, but in his heart he knew that the body in the bag had been too large for a child. Maybe it was a significant AQ commander? But who? Who else was sufficiently important that the Americans would want him removed along with the Pacer?

Joe tried to clear his head. No doubt he’d find out in time, but for now he had other things to worry about. There was still work to do and this was dangerous territory. Osama bin Laden might be dead, but the blood was still pumping through Joe’s veins. He had to remain focused if he wanted it to stay that way.

Two

Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK. The following morning, 0830 hours.

Mrs Bethan Jones had only been out of bed for an hour, but at her time of life an hour could feel like a day. The very business of dressing herself and making her way downstairs was enough to exhaust her. She had lost count of the number of well-meaning doctors who had tried to persuade her to move out of her remote, cavernous, draughty house and into a retirement home. Or: ‘Isn’t there a relative who might help you out, Mrs Jones? A friend?’ But there were no relatives, apart from a distant cousin of her late husband, Gethin, who’d had her eyes on the house ever since he’d died nigh on twenty years ago now. No friends either, not any more – unless you counted her pale gold cat, Dandelion. And Bethan Jones would rather die than spend the rest of her days dribbling in a home. Anybody who suggested it was given short shrift.

Dandelion was curled up over her feet. Bethan was glad of the extra warmth. Her feet were ulcerated, and she found it too painful even to put on a pair of slippers. She’d been warned by the health visitor who made the journey out here every two weeks – even though it was several miles out of her catchment area – that she really ought not let Dandelion anywhere near the suppurating sores on her feet. The moulted cat hairs had a habit of getting stuck to the skin, causing infection. But there was no way Bethan would ever banish her cat. If Dandelion was comfortable where he was, that was good enough for her.

Although it was a large house, Bethan as good as lived in this one room. Twice a day she would totter out to the kitchen to fill Dandelion’s bowl with food and her own glass with an inch of Bell’s and water that was practically her only sustenance; come nightfall, she would strap herself into her stairlift and go up to bed. But the rest of the time was spent in here. It was the biggest room in the old house, about eight metres square, with a large, stone fireplace that hadn’t seen a fire since the day before Gethin passed on. Instead, an electric heater sat in the fireplace, both bars on.

Bethan’s eyes flickered over to the window. The panes were misted with grime and the frames rotting on account of the salty wind. It was raining outside, but that was no surprise. It had rained all winter and showed no signs of stopping now that spring had arrived. She pulled her floral housecoat more tightly around her and turned her attention back to the television. It was on full volume – Bethan was more than a little deaf. It was also positioned just two metres from the sofa as her eyesight really wasn’t what it used to be.

For the third time that morning, she listened to the news bulletin – to the only story that the shiny breakfast TV reporters had any interest in today. ‘Osama bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda leader and mastermind behind the September 11th attacks, is dead. He was shot in the early hours of this morning by US special forces, who raided his compound in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad. His body has already been buried at sea, in accordance with Muslim practice . . .’

Bethan peered more closely at the television. A familiar picture of bin Laden, one finger raised up in the air, filled the screen. She felt a sour look cross her face. ‘Such a wicked man, Dandelion,’ she said out loud. On the bookshelf behind the television there was a photo of Gethin, staring out fiercely, with his splendid lamb-chop sideburns. ‘He always said so,’ she continued talking to her cat. ‘“You mark my words, Bethan lass,’’ he used to say. “Those Arabs, they’ll be more trouble than the blacks before long. Rivers of blood, lass, rivers of blood . . .” He knew what he was talking about, did my Gethin.’

She had been sitting in exactly this seat ten years previously, watching the 9/11 attacks unfold on TV, and she had recalled Gethin’s foresight on that day too. Dandelion had been a kitten then, not the elderly clump of fur he had now become. The cat miaowed lazily as the TV cut to footage of the US President announcing bin Laden’s death to the world, but suddenly Bethan’s attention was diverted. Dandelion had cut short his miaow and jumped up onto her lap, and she could see something else on the television screen. Her own reflection stared dimly back at her in the glass, but she could also see the reflection of a second person. A tall man, standing behind the sofa. Thin. Dark skin. Dark hair. A slight stoop to his lanky shoulders.

Bethan started and fumbled for the remote control, causing Dandelion to jump down to the floor as she located the mute button. Silence filled the room – a silence that was almost as oppressive as the noise it had replaced – and Bethan realized that she was flushed, that her heart was beating hard.

‘I do hope I didn’t alarm you, Mrs Jones,’ said a quiet voice behind her.

It was an effort for Bethan to turn round, and she winced trying to do so. Immediately she felt light fingers on her shoulders.

‘Please, Mrs Jones,’ said the voice. ‘Don’t move on my account. I only popped in to say goodbye.’

‘Oh, Mr Ashe, I’m afraid I didn’t hear you . . .’

‘I did knock, Mrs Jones.’ The figure was walking round the side of the sofa.

‘Oh, I’m sure you did, Mr Ashe, I’m sure you did. My hearing’s not quite what it was, you know, and I was just catching up with the news . . .’

Mr Ashe smiled. Only now did Bethan see that he was carrying a mug.

‘I’ve brought you a cup of hot Ribena, Mrs Jones. There was no milk for tea.’

‘Oh, bless you, Mr Ashe,’ she said as he placed the cup on a small table by the sofa intended for just that purpose. She patted the seat next to her, indicating that he should sit down, which he did. Dandelion immediately jumped onto Mr Ashe’s lap, where he curled up contentedly and purred as his ears were scratched by his long, well-manicured fingers.

‘They’ve caught that dreadful man.’

‘So I understand, Mrs Jones.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Ashe? I’m a little hard of hearing, as you know.’

‘I under—’

‘Really, I don’t know how it’s taken them so long.’

‘So long, Mrs Jones?’

‘To catch him, Mr Ashe.’

Mr Ashe gave a little shrug, as if to indicate that this was, for him too, a profound mystery. For the next two minutes they sat in silence, watching the mute pictures on the screen: the bland white compound in Pakistan, now surrounded by a collection of armed police, reporters and ordinary onlookers. Flashing sirens. Curious locals.

A thought suddenly struck Mrs Jones. ‘You’re not from . . . ?’

‘Saudi Arabia,’ said Mr Ashe gently.

Bethan nodded, pretending this meant something to her, but in truth one of these countries was the same as another to her. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Saudi Arabia, yes. Of course, I’m not saying all of you are . . . But I don’t care what anybody says, Mr Ashe, the world’s a better place without him.’

‘Safer,’ Mr Ashe agreed. ‘I wouldn’t wish to bring up children in a world where—’

‘I was never blessed, Mr Ashe.’ She adopted a look of mild tragedy as she glanced at Gethin’s photograph again.

A silence, broken by Mr Ashe clearing his throat politely. Bethan blinked. ‘Saying goodbye?’ she asked, as it dawned on her what he had said several minutes ago. ‘But you’ve only been here for two days, Mr Ashe. You know how I enjoy your company.’ And it was true.