Imposter 13 Page 3

  It was a fair point, and probably why neither Cox nor Salman contested him at all.

  ‘Let’s connect first,’ Cox said.

  She used her phone to call him, before he opened the door and stepped out into the night once more. With the door open the sounds of the night, of nearby ships and cranes clunking shipping containers on board in the distance, carried through the air. When the door was closed again the silence felt thick and eerie.

  Salman opened his mouth to say something, but Cox put up her hand to halt him.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Something’s not right here. Just like you were trying to tell me earlier in the day. But, despite how it ended, we had to meet Thuriyah. You must see that? Now we’re here, and we’ve still a job to do, regardless of how it might go tits-up again.’

  Salman relaxed and smiled. ‘Don’t worry. I don’t actually blame you for all the shit.’

  ‘No. But quite often you make it feel like it’s my fault.’

  He sighed. ‘You’re only trying to do the right thing. The truth is, I admire you.’

  His comment knocked her for a moment.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For earlier. I was horrified when you shot Thuriyah. You didn’t know her really, but she was such an innocent person. She didn’t deserve anything that happened to her. But I understand you had to do that. To save me. So thank you, for saving me.’

  ‘If there’d been another way, other than shooting her … ’

  The car fell silent again. Up ahead Mazin, hands in his jacket pockets, strolled casually right past the small building that was surreptitiously plonked on the connector road with nothing else around it. In years gone by, before the port had been transformed into the behemoth it now was, the building probably enjoyed a quiet and prominent position on the coast. Now it was just an oddity. Which perhaps explained why it had fallen into disuse. Officially at least.

  Not long after, Mazin disappeared round a bend in the road ahead.

  ‘Anything more from Flannigan?’ Salman asked.

  ‘Not since we told him we were headed to Suhar.’

  ‘So we need to get Faiz and transport him all the way back to Nizwa still? Seems like a better spot here to get him out of the country. Shove him on a boat. Probably his plan, isn’t it?’

  ‘Shove him on a boat to where exactly? I’m not sure the Saudis or the Iraqis will welcome us with open arms.’

  Salman scoffed but didn’t otherwise respond.

  ‘But you’ve got a point,’ Cox said. ‘Let’s get Faiz first, then make that call.’

  Salman nodded.

  ‘Are you there?’ came Mazin’s distant voice. He sounded out of breath. Cox picked the phone up and put it on speaker.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I couldn’t see anything. No other cars parked down here. No lights on inside the building. The hotel definitely isn’t open any more though.’

  ‘What’s round the back?’ Cox asked.

  ‘Nothing much. No access that way. They have to be inside still.’

  Cox’s mind whirred with different thoughts. Was it possible they’d been duped? That Faiz had already scarpered through a secret exit?

  ‘If there’s no one else inside, we should just go in,’ Salman said. ‘Before more of them arrive.’

  Cox really didn’t know what the best option was. She’d led plenty of raids and extractions in her time, but usually they were well planned and involved specially trained agents, tactical teams, quite often direct from the military, taking up the firing line. She and Salman were intelligence agents, not action heroes. Mazin wasn’t even that. None of them had the expertise to launch an armed raid, particularly against an unquantifiable target.

  ‘No,’ Cox said. ‘We have to wait.’

  ‘Wait for what?’ Salman said.

  ‘For Faiz to show his face.’

  ‘We have no idea when that will be.’

  ‘But we’ll do it anyway. For now at least. If the field of play changes, we’ll adapt, but no point running headfirst into the unknown.’

  ‘But that’s what we’ve been doing all along. You’re so good at it.’

  That cheeky smile again. At least it was better than when he was being downright sullen.

  ‘Come back to the car,’ Cox said to Mazin.

  ‘On my way,’ he said.

  Moments later he came back into view again.

  ‘Shit,’ he said before she saw him drop his hand down, stuffing the phone away.

  Then a figure stepped out from the front of the building.

  ‘Faiz?’ Salman said.

  Cox couldn’t be sure.

  Mazin kept his head down and his pace up, but Cox could tell the man was giving him a suspicious eye as he made his way to the parked car. His head turned as he followed Mazin, then kept on going until he was facing the Land Cruiser and the motorbike.

  The man paused.

  ‘Shit,’ Cox said.

  ‘He’s seen us.’

  Salman twisted the key and the Land Cruiser’s engine roared to life. Mazin glanced behind him, then broke into a run.

  The man reached down to his side.

  ‘He’s got a gun!’ Cox screamed.

  Salman thumped the accelerator and the Land Cruiser shot forward.

  ‘Get down!’ he shouted to Cox.

  She did as she was told. Kind of. She hunkered down, but she couldn’t not look. Mazin was running for his life towards them. His face caught under a street light and in the orange glow Cox could see his panic. But the man with the gun didn’t aim at him. He aimed at the onrushing Land Cruiser.

  Cox braced herself then winced when the flash of fire erupted from the barrel, before there was an almost instantaneous clunk as the bullet lodged in the front of the vehicle.

  ‘I said get down!’ Salman screamed.

  Cox now did so. Not a second later the windscreen shattered when another bullet hit. She didn’t dare look again, and however much she was braced, she was still unprepared when moments later Salman let out a determined shout before the Land Cruiser came to a crashing halt. The sudden impact sent Cox shooting forward before her seat belt caught and with her head already bowed in front of her, it cracked off the dashboard at the same moment the airbag exploded, giving her a double whammy of impacts.

  Dazed, it took Cox several beats as she waited for the stars to clear.

  ‘Cox, come on,’ she heard Salman say, his voice distant at first. ‘Cox!’

  She snapped herself back into focus. Her head was spinning and pounding, her ears ringing. She reached a shaky hand out to the door and collapsed onto the tarmac outside. Her vision was still blurred and she realised as she rubbed at her eyes it was because one of them was filled with blood coming from her forehead.

  With a grunt of determination Cox hauled herself up to her feet. Her eyes fell on the devastation at the front of the vehicle where the Land Cruiser had ploughed head-on into Faiz’s car. The crumpled bonnet was wedged into the rear end of the smaller vehicle. Steam hissed. There was broken glass and shards of metal and plastic bent and twisted and protruding all over. And in between the whole mess, draped over what remained of the Land Cruiser’s front end, the twisted and crushed torso of the man who’d shot at them moments before.

  Cox stepped over, shocked by the ghastly sight, though relieved to see it wasn’t Faiz.

  ‘Cox, there he is!’

  She looked up to see Faiz on foot, nearly a hundred yards away, pounding across the tarmac away from the hotel.

  ‘Shit, come on.’

  She broke into a run, groaning as she did so, only then realising her body was already seriously battered and bruised from the crash. She just hoped adrenaline would see her through.

  Salman was five yards ahead of her. Gun in hand. He slowed in his step as he raised the weapon.

  ‘No!’ Cox shouted.

  He lowered the gun and picked up the pace again.

  ‘I was … going for his legs,’ he said through heavy breaths.

  ‘Not worth the risk. He’s … going nowhere.’

  Though she wasn’t quite sure about that. Did he know this place?

  Cox glanced behind her. No one was following from the hotel. So Faiz and his companion really had been alone in there?

  She heard a distant rumble behind her. Glanced over her shoulder again to see a single headlight beam. Mazin. On his motorbike. The engine whined as the revs peaked.

  What the hell was he doing? If he mowed Faiz down …

  Seconds later the motorbike blasted past. Faiz, in the distance, seemed to sense the onrushing vehicle too. He looked behind him, increased his pace for a second as though he was going to try and outrun the bike, before he abruptly changed direction, heading right, where he clambered over a chain-link fence into an industrial yard filled with shipping containers.

  ‘Great,’ Cox said.

  Mazin slammed the brakes and the bike skidded and weaved as it came to a stop. He jumped off the bike and launched himself up and over the fence.

  ‘Keep on him,’ Cox shouted. ‘But don’t get too close.’

  Nothing from Mazin in response, who, like Faiz, was soon out of sight among the maze of containers. Salman darted right too and sprang over the fence. Cox followed and made a much less elegant ascent up and over, only just managing to stay on her feet as she scrambled down the other side.

  She looked around. There were no lights on in the yard, the only illumination coming from the road behind them. Beyond the shipping containers stacked in front of her, Cox could hear the gentle lapping of the sea. For the first time she took her own handgun from its holster on her side. She hated guns, and as much as she knew she couldn’t afford to shoot and kill Faiz, out here in the darkn
ess she needed it for her own sense of comfort as much as anything else.

  She jumped when Mazin appeared from behind a container on her left.

  ‘He’s gone towards the water,’ he said quietly.

  ‘What the hell were you thinking?’ Salman blasted in an angry whisper.

  Cox gave them both an indication to shut up.

  ‘Mazin, go left, Salman right. If Faiz makes a break in either direction shout. Otherwise keep quiet. We’ll corner him.’

  Both nodded before they set off. Cox took two deep breaths then slowly moved forward, keeping close to the container on her right. As she approached the end of it her heart rate ramped up in anticipation. She jumped around the corner, gun out. She spun the other way. No one there. She waited a moment. No sounds at all except her own breathing and the gentle ripple of the unseen sea.

  She carried on. Cleared two more sets of containers. She wouldn’t have classed herself as claustrophobic, but being stuck alone, in the dark, in the middle of the looming metal boxes, stacked several storeys high in places, was unnerving to say the least.

  More worrying though, where was Faiz? Had he slipped by them somehow?

  And where the hell were Salman and Mazin?

  Cox was beginning to regret insisting on their silence.

  ‘Cox!’

  It was Mazin.

  ‘He’s here!’

  His voice was a welcome relief. However panicked he sounded. As she raced towards where the sound had come from, she heard commotion. Groans. Thuds. She raised her gun. Turned the corner round the next container to see Mazin sprawled on the floor. A figure disappeared from view just a few yards in front.

  ‘Crap. Salman, where are you!’ Cox shouted.

  ‘Here,’ came the nearby reply a second before he blasted past in front of her. Cox set off at pace too. Mazin groggily propped himself up as Cox reached him.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Fine. Go.’

  She didn’t break stride as she raced past in hot pursuit. With a brief glimpse of Salman every now and then she snaked through the yard, until they came to a large clearing, looming cranes in the near distance along the edge of the docks, the blackness of the water beyond. Salman was just in front of her, Faiz further ahead and heading straight for the water it seemed.

  ‘Don’t let him get away,’ Cox shouted.

  She wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that. Was she telling Salman to shoot? He seemed to think so because a moment later he was slowing again as he raised his gun to take aim.

  ‘Faiz, stop there!’ Cox shouted. ‘Please!’

  Not even a twitch as he carried on sprinting.

  She half-raised her own gun. At least if she pulled the trigger the decision was hers, no one else to blame if it went wrong.

  But before she got the chance Salman fired. The boom so close to her ear sent a piercing pain through her head. She squinted as she saw Faiz stumble and fall. She wasn’t sure where the bullet had hit. His leg hopefully. Perhaps his back.

  She continued to close the distance. But Faiz was soon back on his feet. Moving more slowly but no less determinedly for the water.

  ‘Faiz, stop!’

  He didn’t.

  ‘Cox, get down.’

  She realised she was in Salman’s field of view. She stepped to the left. Another gunshot. She could just make out the burst of dust as the bullet sank into the tarmac. A miss.

  Faiz kept going.

  ‘No!’

  He leapt as much as he fell over the edge …

  Cox’s heart missed a beat. She expected to hear the splash. As she raced forward, images flashed in her mind of Faiz drifting under the dark water, never to be seen again. She certainly wasn’t jumping in there after him.

  Was she?

  But instead of a splash, there was a thunk. And then a groan.

  Frowning, Cox darted up to the edge. She stopped with her toes just over the edge and looked down. She smiled as she stooped over, out of breath, and put her hands to her knees.

  ‘Not quite what you were expecting?’ she said as she looked down at the crumpled heap of Faiz who was sprawled and bleeding on the wooden gangway ten feet below.

  Faiz glared back defiantly. Salman was soon by Cox’s side, gun pointed at their man.

  ‘Move, and I’ll blow your balls off,’ Salman said.

  An unnecessarily macho comment, Cox felt, but she said nothing of it.

  She took a few seconds to get her breathing under control. Mazin hobbled over.

  ‘Bastard,’ he said as he glared down at the man responsible for his split lip and the gash above his eye. Faiz simply continued to stare, said nothing.

  ‘So what now?’ Mazin said.

  Cox thought back to the hotel. The mangled Land Cruiser and the car it was wedged into. And they couldn’t exactly get all of them on Mazin’s motorbike. And Nizwa, where they were supposed to be taking Faiz, was over a hundred and fifty miles away.

  ‘Cox?’ Salman said. ‘What now?’

  ‘It’s a bloody good question.’

  But at least they had their man.

  She took out her phone to call Flannigan.

  CHAPTER 5

  Three weeks later

  London, England

  The box room Aydin Torkal was sitting in had only one, small square glass window, though there was little point to it because less than two yards beyond the glass a large grey-brick building loomed high. Even on a sunny winter’s day like today, there wasn’t a ray of sunshine in sight, the buzzing overhead strip light a necessity regardless of time of day or year it seemed.

  Not that Aydin was bothered about having a room with a view. He was too focused, his fingers tapping away in a blur as his eyes flicked back and forth across the computer screen. The earphone in his left ear, the one facing away from the door, played a nonstop playlist of classical music, though Aydin had no clue what the compositions were or which composers wrote them, however familiar the sounds. Yet the melodic rhythms, the crescendos in particular, aided both his speed and concentration.

  He stopped typing and sat back in his designer swivel chair that was apparently health-and-safety compliant, at least according to the over-keen head of HR for the small company he worked for, who’d recently insisted he use it for his own ergonomic benefit.

  He hit enter then held his breath in anticipation as he stared at the screen, waiting for the result of his latest endeavours. When he received the error message his mood went from expectant to enraged in a second, as frustration and tiredness boiled over. He yanked the earphone out, clenched it tightly in his fist and thumped down onto the gloss plastic desk. He thumped again, growling in anger as he did so then slumped back, his heart racing, his head pounding, as the fruits of his efforts evaporated before his eyes with not a single item of tangible progress to show.

  He heard a creak outside the door. Quickly closed down browser windows and logged out of all of the many applications he had running.

  There was a light knock on the door before it opened and two curious eyes peeked through.

  ‘Everything OK in there, old chap?’

  Jim Waters. A peer of Aydin’s at the software company they both worked for. At least they were peers in the sense that they were both the same ‘level’, and a similar age. Waters, however, was about as corporate as anyone could be in the world of software development, the idea of climbing the career ladder his clear life objective. That was fine with Aydin, he didn’t begrudge Waters in anyway because of that, but there was a clear reason why Waters worked in an open plan office managing not just himself but others, while Aydin was content to be sitting in a glorified broom cupboard with nothing but hardware and software for company.

  Well, there was more than one reason actually, and it wasn’t just to do with career aims, or lack of them. Aydin had to work alone. How else could he get done what he needed?

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ Aydin said.

  ‘I didn’t even realise you were still here. Not seen you come out of your hole in hours.’

  ‘Just trying to get something done.’

  Waters took a step further inside, glancing not very covertly at the computer screen as though trying to catch Aydin out. He’d have to be quicker than that. Waters sighed. He actually looked vaguely concerned for Aydin. Really, he was a good guy. If Aydin hadn’t been Aydin, then Waters would have been a perfectly normal person for him to be friends with.