‘Bin Laden made the mistake of letting you know his identity,’ said Hamid. ‘I never did.’

  ‘You know what he’s done, right?’ Breeze met Kate’s gaze. ‘How many deaths he’s responsible for?’

  Kate nodded, grim-faced. ‘I’ve seen the news. Military bases and hospitals blown up with vehicle bombs. And secondary attacks, designed to kill first responders coming in to help after the initial blast.’

  ‘Callous fucker, am I right?’ Breeze stifled a cough. ‘But that shit is just what the TV covers. Al-Sakakin has done other stuff that don’t make it to CNN; the kinda thing that would give you nightmares. Whole villages full of people butchered because someone didn’t wanna hide one of his jihadis in a barn. Blood-cost deals cut with criminal gangs and people traffickers. Dealing in drugs and slaves. I mean, how do you think they pay for bullets and bricks of C-4?’

  ‘For the righteous man in the pursuit of victory, in time of war any deed will be tolerated.’ Hamid offered the thought without looking up.

  Breeze levelled a finger at him. ‘There you go. Righteous. He believes that. It gives him permission to be the nastiest son of a bitch alive.’

  ‘Only God can judge me,’ he said with a sniff. ‘He has already found you wanting.’

  Breeze’s gaze turned stony. ‘One day, I made a vow to myself, y’know? I promised I would find the man called Hamid and take his organisation apart, stone by stone if I had to. And he’s been my crusade ever since.’

  ‘But you never knew his face,’ said Kate, glancing back at the man. ‘You stood right next to him and you thought he was someone else. Yusuf.’

  ‘He’s clever, I’ll give him that.’ Breeze nodded.

  ‘Why?’ Kate sat down next to the American. She sensed there was more beneath the surface, something dark and terrible that Breeze could barely conceal. ‘Why did you make this personal?’

  Breeze exhaled, a slow breath that shuddered as it left her. ‘Sophia Betel. She was my source, a civilian I recruited to work as a CIA asset. She knew what buddy-boy here and his playmates were doing out in the Levant. They had no idea she was feeding details on their movements back to me.’

  ‘I remember her,’ Hamid said distantly. ‘Pretty, for a foreigner. At least, she was to begin with.’

  ‘Sophia wasn’t an agent, you get it? I didn’t want to put her in, but I had no other options.’ Breeze rubbed the heel of her hand at the corner of her eye. Kate realised she was seeing the woman’s real self for a brief instant. ‘She was smart, brave as all get-out! And funny! I liked her.’

  ‘Is that why you lied to her?’ Hamid offered the question to the air. ‘Is that why you let her die?’ He made a tutting sound. ‘Are you capable of guilt? After that, you should be drowning in it.’

  ‘It was . . . complex. Her cover was blown.’ Breeze stared at the floor. ‘I couldn’t get her out in time. They killed her.’

  Kate’s blood chilled at the awful certainty of it.

  ‘Eventually.’ Hamid took over the thread of the conversation. ‘First, I allowed some of the men to take a payment from her. As a lesson to others, yes?’ His tone turned flat, without even expending the effort to be cruel. ‘And when that was done, she was made to kneel upon a sheet of plastic, and I had one of the new recruits record her last moments on camera. Her execution has played out thousands of times since then, on the internet channels we use to recruit, and the videos played to stir the martial fire of our warriors.’

  ‘They . . . took her head.’ Breeze made a weak gesture at her throat.

  ‘No, no.’ Hamid held up a finger. ‘Not they. It was I. The hand holding the blade? It was mine. You never knew this?’ His lip curled. ‘I gave the witch a far better death than she deserved.’

  Breeze stiffened, colouring as anger shot through her. ‘You’re a coward and a piece of shit,’ she spat.

  Hamid rose in a swift movement and came striding toward them. Kate was on her feet, immediately putting herself between the wounded American and the hard-eyed killer. ‘Stay back!’

  Hamid ignored her, his gaze boring into Breeze. ‘Before, when we were aboard the aircraft. You asked me a question, do you recall? You asked me what I wanted Allah to see.’

  ‘I remember,’ said the other woman, in a dead voice.

  ‘I did not respond at the time because I was hiding my truth from you. But now we see each other for what we really are, I can respond with honesty.’ He glanced at Kate, as if daring her to try to stop him. ‘I want him to see you die.’

  The moment stretched to a breaking point but Kate stood her ground. If Hamid attacked her, she wouldn’t falter. But then he broke away and wandered back to the camp bed, his hooded gaze returning to the locked door keeping the three of them prisoner.

  ‘There’s a meeting out there,’ said Knox, putting together the variables. ‘With the asset?’

  Red Tie shrugged again, his voice tinny through the speakers inside the mobile unit. ‘You know, for all her bluster, Lillian Breeze may have been right about one thing. The asset, whoever he is, has more value than we initially assumed.’

  Chester frowned. It was the second time the man back at Langley had talked about Breeze in the past tense, assuming she was already dead. He found himself speaking before he could stop. ‘We don’t have confirmation of her status.’

  ‘We can safely assume so at this point,’ said Red Tie, his manner cooling. ‘Given the lack of evidence to the contrary.’ He schooled his expression into something shaped vaguely like regret. ‘We’ll put a star for her up on the memorial wall. That is if we don’t bury this whole sorry episode entirely after the fact.’

  ‘Sir, what outcome are we looking for here?’ Knox spoke up, effectively halting anything else Chester had to say. ‘And how do we fit into it?’

  ‘I want you monitoring remotely from that location,’ came the reply. Red Tie made a motion with his hand. ‘In the event of any additional complications. But as to outcome . . . we’re going to use this opportunity to deploy against a gathering of high-value targets. Then at least I’ll have something of worth to show the Director when the smoke clears.’

  Chester baulked at the finality of that last sentence. ‘Sir, if I may. When you say deploy—’

  Red Tie’s weary sigh cut off Chester’s words. ‘The USS Clancy is at sea in the Mediterranean and she’s currently under way to a location off the Algerian coast.’ He glanced at the flashy gold watch on his wrist. ‘Should be on station in the next hour.’

  ‘The Clancy’s an Arleigh Burke class ship,’ said Knox, reeling off the details by reflex. ‘A missile cruiser out of the Sixth Fleet, Task Force 60.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Red Tie. ‘And when the moment comes, her captain will wipe that airfield off the map with a couple of precision-targeted Tomahawks.’ He mimed cleaning his palms. ‘Problem solved.’

  ‘Sir . . .’ Chester straightened in his chair. ‘With all due respect, the purpose of this operation is to gain intel, not kills. I don’t have to remind you that al-Sakakin has been planning a hit on US soil for months now. We need details—’

  ‘Correct,’ Red Tie snapped. ‘You don’t have to remind me. And if Breeze had not exceeded her operational mandate with this this half-assed mission, maybe we would have gotten that. But we’re playing the hand we’ve been dealt.’ He tapped the file in front of him. ‘This is actionable intelligence on the whereabouts of one, if not more, HVTs. If we can’t get information on where these bastards are planning to hit us, we do the next best thing. We hit them first and we hit them hard.’ He gave that a moment to sink in. ‘We’ve seen what they did in Europe and Asia. This is our chance to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen in an American city. We cut off the head of the snake.’

  ‘You’re going to fire two cruise missiles into Algerian sovereign territory without its government’s knowledge or permission?’ Chester didn’t keep the thought to himself. He couldn’t stay silent; couldn’t let this escalate further without saying something. ‘Launching an attack that will also kill American and British citizens?’

  Red Tie gave Knox an incredulous look, as if he couldn’t believe Chester’s naivety. ‘Someone needs to look up the words “collateral damage”, am I right?’ he said, with a sniff. ‘Seriously, how has this man worked for the agency for this long and not developed an appreciation of that?’ He went on, without waiting for a reply. ‘We’ll tell the Algerians after it’s done. They’ll keep their mouths shut when we remind them they’re giving safe harbour to terrorists, and America has a lot more Tomahawks to burn.’ Then he leaned in, his face growing to fill the screen. ‘And, quite frankly, I find it disingenuous that you’re becoming squeamish about this option, considering it was your team who ordered an air-to-air drone attack a short time ago.’

  ‘Didn’t agree with that, either,’ muttered Chester, turning away from the screen.

  Red Tie’s eyes narrowed. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Understood, sir,’ said Knox, covering for him. ‘We will remain on site and monitor comms, as ordered.’

  Red Tie looked as if he was going to say more, but then he shook his head and sat back in the chair. ‘Gentlemen, by tomorrow morning, this will be behind us and I will have forgotten both your names. It’s in your best interests to make sure that outcome doesn’t alter, yes?’

  ‘Understood,’ Knox repeated, but the screen had already gone dark, the video call ended from the other end.

  Chester took a breath and opened his mouth, a half-formed thought on his lips, but the other man glared at him, strangling the moment.

  ‘You shut the hell up,’ Knox told him, pulling his cap back over his head, ‘and you do your job.’ He kicked open the MOU’s door and stalked away, out into the cold of the night.

  TWENTY THREE

  The police car gripped the rain-slicked road, holding the turns as Alex guided it from the narrow back lanes and on to the junction, going as fast as he dared. The Volvo ate up the distance, steering around the late-night traffic.

  Below, the wide asphalt strips of the M2 motorway spooled away in either direction, occasional clusters of crimson lights flowing one way, and white headlights going in the other.

  The burning pain in his torso, his legs and along Alex’s arm were a constant ache, but he didn’t dare stop to check his bandages for fear he might not go on. There wasn’t any time. He circled the interchange, searching the road signs on each turn-off as he passed them, as if they might provide the answers he desperately needed.

  What would the men who took his boy do? Would it be smarter to stay on the less-travelled roads and keep away from built-up areas? Or had they made a different choice, trading risk for expedience?

  Heading westward, in the direction of London, might let them get lost in the city’s outskirts, but police surveillance was thicker there and the chance of getting stopped increased exponentially. Going east in the direction of Canterbury would send the black BMW deeper into the Kent countryside and, taken to its eventual conclusion, they would hit the coast and run out of road.

  Perhaps Matvey and his men had already doubled back. Perhaps Alex had been going the wrong way all along, and with every mile that passed, he was getting further and further away from his son.

  An icy claw of dread tightened around Alex’s stomach, with the needle of his emotions flicking between abject panic and unfettered fury. He smacked the centre of the Volvo’s steering wheel with the heel of his hand and let out a wordless bellow of frustration.

  ‘I don’t know where to go!’ He shouted at nothing, his roar rebounding around the confines of the car. Alex stamped on the brakes and the Volvo lurched to a halt on the middle of an overpass bridge. Before he knew it, he was outside and standing at the edge, looking down at the sparse traffic. He gripped the cold metal barrier before him. Any one of those lights could be the BMW, and despair filled him at the hopelessness of the moment.

  Through the open door of the patrol car, a woman’s voice, tinny and shot through with static, issued out of the radio on the dash. ‘Paramedics are on site at incident on Caister Lane. Reporting one officer wounded, one officer fatality, over.’

  The name caught his attention – Caister Lane was where the lay-by sat, where he had left Grace and her unlucky partner to wait for an ambulance. Alex veered back toward the vehicle, realising that he was listening to one half of a conversation between the police dispatcher and another unit.

  ‘We have confirmation, police vehicle is missing from site.’ The radio voice read off the car’s call-sign code, identical to the letters and numbers on the ID plate bolted to the Volvo’s dashboard.

  Alex felt a surge of relief, taking some comfort that the injured police officer was in safe hands, but it faded quickly when he realised he was on borrowed time. Every copper in the county would soon be on the lookout for the people who had killed one of their own, and Alex would be right in the middle of that with the stolen car in his possession.

  But there wasn’t time to stop and explain. George’s life hung in the balance, and Alex had gone too far to stop now, to surrender and hope the cops could sort it out.

  Then the radio crackled again, and the voice threw Alex the lifeline he so desperately needed. ‘Member of the public reports speeding driver heading east on the M2, black BMW G30. Location, junction 5. Any units in the vicinity? Repeat, do we have police units in the vicinity?’

  He looked up, finding the nearest road sign. The number ‘4’ designated the junction he was standing at. The BMW had been sighted a few miles away.

  He was close.

  Alex rushed back to the driving seat and slammed the Volvo into gear, reversing back along the overpass, hauling round the steering wheel to aim the car toward the slip road. This time he didn’t hesitate on the accelerator, pressing the pedal into the floor, kicking up rainwater as the car shot down the ramp and on to the motorway.

  When the door clanged open again, Kate rose to her feet, convinced that this was going to be the fatal moment.

  But the armed man filling the doorway only gave the two women a cursory glance, then focused on Hamid, beckoning him sharply. He said something tersely in Arabic, and with a wary look on his face, the other man followed him out of the room.

  The door locked shut behind him, leaving Kate and Breeze alone. ‘What the hell is going on out there?’ The American asked the question with a sigh. ‘Nothing good,’ she added, supplying her own reply.

  Kate moved to the barred window and looked out into the night through the dust-caked glass, but it was hard to see anything clearly. ‘We’re never getting out of here,’ she muttered.

  ‘Nope.’ Breeze shook her head. ‘Probably not. So you better pick how you wanna go out, if you get my drift.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Breeze looked her way. ‘Here’s what they told me at the Agency. If you’re a woman and you ever get captured by these fuckers, if the clock runs down, don’t go quiet. Make ’em angry. Pick a fight with the nastiest-looking one of the lot. Get him to shoot you.’

  Kate’s throat turned arid. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because a bullet is quick, and then you’re dead. Then they don’t get to soak you in gasoline, lock you in a cage and toss in a match. Or feed you to their dogs. Or cut off your—’

  ‘I get the picture,’ Kate broke in. ‘Shit.’

  ‘Yes, shit indeed.’ Breeze nodded solemnly. ‘So, any last words, thoughts and prayers? Now’s the time.’

  Kate thought about Alex and George, remembering the cold air in the darkened garden and the starry sky overhead. She’d been happy in that instant, truly happy for the first time in a long while. It had only been hours ago but it felt like those moments belonged to a different person and another lifetime. Now she had no way of knowing if Alex and his son were even alive, and grim uncertainty as to when her own end would come.

  How could so much that was good in her world be ripped apart in so short a time? How was it fair that life could be this fragile? She took a shuddering breath.

  It wasn’t the first time fate had taught her this hard lesson, but Kate had survived that ordeal. Perhaps, subconsciously, she believed enduring that would immunise her from further hurt. I’m an idiot to believe it.

  ‘What really happened to you in the Air Force?’ Kate looked back and found Breeze watching her carefully, as if watching the play of her thoughts on her face. ‘Why’d you quit?’

  ‘You said you read my file from the MoD,’ Kate replied. ‘You know the reason.’

  ‘Wasn’t clear,’ Breeze noted. ‘Vague references about an accident during a training exercise. People died. And then a lot of bureaucrat bullshit-ese about “operational suitability” and “unit incompatibility”.’ She shrugged. ‘But I can read between the lines. I know a frame job when I see one. Let me make a guess, someone wanted you out of the cockpit, someone with pull, but you turned in your papers before they could make it a dishonourable discharge. Am I on the mark?’

  ‘You really are one of the most annoying people I’ve ever met,’ Kate growled. The American was unpleasantly perceptive. She cut closer to the facts than the pilot wanted to admit.

  ‘Guilty as charged.’ Breeze stifled a wet cough into her hand. ‘C’mon, talk to me. Tell me who fucked you over. What do you have to lose?’

  Kate put her head in her hands and let out a low exhale. She’d never told anyone the whole sorry story, not even Alex. But now it was pushing at her to spill out. And, at length, she let it go.

  ‘There was a collision. A mid-air.’ When she closed her eyes, Kate experienced the moment again, the thunderous crack of metal on metal shaking the airframe around her, the flash of crimson emergency lights and the skirling cry of a master alarm. ‘We were on an exercise, flying Hawks – two-seater jet trainers. Me and my back-seater, Jeff Ward. Called him Wardy.’

  She remembered him shouting in fear as the impact from below shunted him up, his flight helmet banging against the inside of the canopy. In her hands, Kate held the ghost of the Hawk’s control stick, recalling how it shook so much that she could barely keep a grip on it.