Osama

TWENTY-FOUR

London. The following day, 1100 hours GMT.

It was most unusual for Mason Delaney not to have slept on a transatlantic flight. But these were most unusual times. His bow tie was not tied with quite its regular precision, and a smear on his horn-rimmed glasses went unwiped. He sat in the rear seat of a black Daimler that swept away from Terminal 5. The windows were dark and a glass screen separated the front of the vehicle from the back. Delaney’s chauffeur glanced repeatedly in the rear-view mirror, but he was sufficiently discreet not to speak into the intercom.

They had just slipped onto the A4 when Delaney’s phone rang. He answered it immediately.

‘It’s me, sir. Scott.’

Delaney didn’t reply. His eyes did not light up as they normally did when he heard the voice of his young assistant. He looked out of his window. It was raining as if there was no air outside, just pounding sheets of water. A black London cab was overtaking them. Beyond that, an enormous airport hotel slid past.

‘Something’s come up, sir.’

‘It’ll have to wait, Scott,’ Delaney said, his voice distracted. ‘I’m expected at Thames House in—’

‘It’s Ashkani, sir. We’ve heard from him.’

Silence. Delaney blinked.

‘You’re sure?’

‘His encryption is good, sir. We’ve been broadcasting the access codes, just in case. He’s requesting a meeting. I can have him apprehended—’

‘What?’ Delaney hissed.

‘Sir?’

‘You want him talking, you fuckwit?’

A pause. ‘No, sir,’ Stroman replied, chastened.

‘Where is he?’

‘West London, sir. Uh, Hounslow. He communicated a grid reference. I can send it through to your driver.’

But Delaney was only half listening. ‘Send it through,’ he said. He was looking out of the window again. The rain was coming down even harder. ‘The soldier,’ he said. ‘Mansfield. You know where he is?’

‘Secure hospital, sir. Our guys are working on it. Sir? Sir?’

Delaney had moved the handset away from his ear. Stroman’s voice sounded distant. He disconnected the line, stared into the middle distance for a moment, then knocked on the glass screen.

‘Mr Delaney?’ the driver’s voice came over the intercom.

‘We’re re-routing?’

‘It’s just coming through now, sir.’

Delaney sat back in his leather seat and did what he could to clear his mind. Perhaps, he reflected, Ashkani did not realize Delaney was on to him. He pulled his attaché case onto his lap and slipped a gloved hand inside to pull out a small, snubnose handgun, which, with half an eye on the driver, he surreptitiously placed in his coat pocket.

The rain did not let up for the whole journey. When the Daimler pulled over forty-five minutes later, its windscreen wipers were barely up to the job. Delaney removed the handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped his misted-up window. They had parked in a small road that ran alongside a children’s playground. On the other side of the playground he could just make out a bandstand and, beyond that, parkland that disappeared into the rainy haze. He squinted. The whole area was deserted, with the exception of the swings in the playground. Despite the rain, there was a boy on one of them, swinging back and forth, wrapped in a navy blue raincoat.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Where was Ashkani? Hiding, until Delaney showed himself??

‘Umbrella, Mr Delaney, sir?’

Delaney nodded, unable to take his eyes off this child playing alone in the pouring rain. Moments later his driver had opened the passenger door and was standing holding a large black umbrella. Delaney climbed out. ‘Stay in the car,’ he instructed. The driver nodded and hurried back behind the wheel while Delaney crossed the twenty metres between the Daimler and the bandstand, one hand in his pocket, clutching the gun. The lower halves of his trousers were sodden by the time he reached it, and he was already shivering with the cold. Water was leaking from the bandstand’s neglected roof in several places. Delaney closed the umbrella and stood at one edge, away from the leaks, his eyes still fixed on the child in the rain.

Back and forth it swung.

Back and forth.

Where was Ashkani?

Something made him turn. He looked back towards the Daimler and once more squinted through the rain. The front door was open. The driver was no longer behind the wheel. He was sprawled on the sidewalk, face down, motionless, the rain beating onto his back.

Delaney found himself holding his breath. He turned back to the child. He looked one way, then the other. The chauffeur flashed in front of his eyes, then the child. Then the chauffeur, then the child turned to look at him and…

He had appeared as if from nowhere, ten metres away, perhaps from some ornamental shrubs between the Daimler and the bandstand. He was a giant of a man, with broad shoulders, a hooded top and a bowed head, charging forward. Even through the rain-haze, Delaney could make out the mad fury in his eyes. Stumbling backwards in the face of that oncoming rage, it was everything Delaney could do to stop himself falling as he tried to pull the gun from his pocket.

Too late.

The sudden violence with which the man launched himself at Delaney shook him to his core. He felt like he had been hit by an unstoppable force. It threw him back three metres, to form a heap on the ground, where dirty rainwater sluiced over his glasses and down his front. Although blinded by the water, he had managed to keep hold of his umbrella, and he held this up now, point outwards, in a feeble attempt to defend himself as he meanwhile tried again to remove his weapon. The umbrella, though, was swiftly ripped from his hands; seconds later he felt it brutally whack the right side of his face. His glasses clattered away from him and he groped in the direction they’d fallen, pulling out his gun as he did so; but just then he felt that being kicked away. It rattled across the decking as his attacker lifted him by the scruff of his neck and back to his feet, then pushed him hard against the back wall of the bandstand.

A face dominated his vision, five inches away from Delaney’s own. He recognized the features and they were not Ashkani’s. He had seen them, barely two weeks ago, enlarged on a screen in the basement of CIA headquarters. What he didn’t recognize was the mania in this man’s expression. Delaney had never seen such hatred.

‘You,’ he whispered.

‘Yeah,’ said Sergeant Joe Mansfield. ‘Me.’

‘But you’re… you’re supposed to be in a secure hospital.’

‘I guess it wasn’t that secure,’ Mansfield growled.

‘I have backup personnel,’ Delaney wheezed. ‘They’ll be here any—’

His feeble ploy degenerated into a howl of pain as Mansfield headbutted his nose. Delaney heard the bone crack and collapse half a second before he felt it. When Mansfield stood back again, he had Delaney’s blood dripping down between his eyes, but that was nothing to the torrent that flowed from the CIA man’s nostrils, over his bow tie and down the front of his shirt.

‘What’s your name?’

‘S… S… Stroman…’ Delaney lied, but then he shrieked again as Mansfield smashed his forehead once more against the already shattered nose, intensifying the pain. Out of the corner of his compromised vision, he was bizarrely aware of the kid still swinging in the playground, but before he knew it, he was squealing his own name: ‘Delaney… Mason Delaney… Please don’t hit me again…’

Another brutal shove and Delaney was back on the floor, his fierce-eyed, menacing attacker looking over him.

‘Talk,’ Mansfield said.

‘I… I don’t know what you want me to—’

The blow Mansfield gave Delaney’s ribs cracked a few. The American wheezed and spluttered as the air, and not a little blood-flecked saliva, escaped his mouth.

The monster was kneeling now. ‘Why,’ he hissed, ‘has your man been trying to kill me?’

‘My man?’

Suddenly Mansfield was holding something in front of Delaney’s face. A smoke-damaged, leather-bound book. A Koran. Ashkani’s Koran. His cipher. ‘You sent the message to meet here?’ the CIA man croaked. ‘How?’

‘My son.’

Delaney glanced myopically over his shoulder towards the swings where he could still see a blurred movement. ‘Your man used the codes in front of my son. Bad mistake.’

Mansfield had something else in his hands now. A gun. He pressed the barrel into the soft flesh of Delaney’s cheek. ‘They want me for two murders, Delaney. You really think a third will make any difference?’

‘The raid,’ Delaney squealed. ‘Abbottabad. You saw—’

‘What did I see? Two body bags – you killed bin Laden and who else?’

‘Killed bin Laden?’ Delaney hissed. ‘You’ve got it all wrong. Why would I want to kill him?’ He coughed again, and more bloody spittle dribbled from the side of his mouth. ‘Why would I want a bullet in the brain of the person with more information on Al-Qaeda than anyone else?’

The barrel of the gun dug deeper into his face. His eyes widened with the sudden fear that this lunatic was going to shoot him; instead, he heard him talk, under his breath, sounding as though something had just clicked. ‘A decoy corpse,’ Mansfield breathed. ‘A lookalike. Gun wounds already inflicted. The SEALs brought it in with them, took bin Laden alive, and photographed the decoy…’

‘Very smart,’ Delaney wheezed. ‘Smarter than our President, at least.’

‘You removed the corpse in one bag and bin Laden, still alive, in another…’

Delaney, despite everything, gave a sickly little laugh.

‘How many people know?’

The American tried to answer, but succumbed to another fit of coughing. His attacker kneed him in his already broken ribs. ‘The SEALs,’ Delaney spat. ‘And a handful of people close to me.’

‘And Ashkani?’

‘Of course Ashkani! It was Ashkani who told us where bin Laden was in the first place.’

A pause. The monster looked like he was absorbing this information.

‘Where is he now?’

‘I don’t know.’

His attacker didn’t hesitate. In a single, swift move, he grabbed the little finger of Delaney’s right hand and yanked it back so that it cracked noisily. Delaney screamed again, and the noise echoed off the roof of the bandstand.

‘You’ve got nine fingers left before I start on the bigger bones,’ Mansfield said once the shriek had withered to a whimper. ‘Where’s Ashkani?’

‘I swear, I don’t… You must see I thought he was here…’

Mansfield cracked back the ring finger as easily as flicking a light switch.

Delaney was sobbing now, trying desperately to talk, but struggling to get the words out through the pain. ‘I swear… I swear I don’t know… I would tell you… he’s been playing me all this time…’

Mansfield had narrowed his eyes. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I thought he was my man… I thought he was arranging things for me…’

‘What things?’

Delaney closed his eyes again.

‘The planes,’ Mansfield breathed. ‘He was doing that for you?’

The American slowly shook his head.

‘What the hell? Why do you want to blow up British planes?’

Delaney coughed again, and struggled to get his breath. ‘Ashkani tipped me off,’ he continued, even more weakly than before. ‘He told me Al-Qaeda were planning a strike. Five planes in the UK, five in the US. Bin Laden’s swansong. The UK planes were Ashkani’s personal responsibility. He said he didn’t know which US flights were to be targeted. Only bin Laden had that information…’ The words faded away on his lips; the world seemed to spin and it was hard for him to keep his thoughts in line. After a few seconds, though, he felt Mansfield clutching a third finger and he managed to spit out some more words in a choked, throttled voice. ‘I told him to go through with the UK attacks… and we would get the remaining intelligence from bin Laden…’

‘Why? Why?’

‘To keep you on side, of course. The British. To keep you in the Middle East. To make you put pressure on our administration to do the same. Americans don’t have the stomach for any more body bags. But the little people…’ he coughed again ?‘… the little people don’t understand how many more body bags there’ll be if we don’t have a presence there…’

He started to spit pathetically. The blood that was still oozing from his nose had flooded over his fat upper lip and into his mouth, sticky and metallic.

‘You said Ashkani was playing you?’ said Mansfield.

Delaney managed a weak nod, another almost-laugh. ‘I should have guessed… a feeble old man sitting in a compound in Pakistan… Ashkani had it all set up… make us raid the wrong aircraft and when we were looking the other way…’

Everything was spinning again. He stopped talking. Mansfield had withdrawn the gun and was getting to his feet. Delaney looked up, glad that this animal, who seemed to revel in the infliction of pain, was moving away from him. He was still holding his gun, but now Delaney saw he had something else in his other hand: a digital voice recorder. There was a faint click as he switched it off.

‘The CIA will claim responsibility for the death of my partner,’ Mansfield said. ‘You’ll inform the British authorities that the raghead I did in Barfield attacked me on your orders. Fail to do that, or if anything happens to me or my son, this tape will be on every fucking website in the world. ’

‘Along with the sound of you coercing me,’ Delaney noted.

‘You think people will give a shit about that?’

Delaney didn’t.

He summoned every ounce of energy he could and pushed himself up into a sitting position. Mansfield was staring at him with utter contempt, but he could deal with that. Insane though he obviously was, the son of a bitch clearly didn’t intend to kill him.

It was still raining hard. The kid was still swinging. ‘That boy,’ Delaney spat. ‘What is he? Simple?’ He touched his good hand to his broken, swollen nose and winced before examining the blood on his fingertips. He peered around for his glasses, and thought he could see them at the edge of the bandstand. He started towards them, but immediately found his way blocked by a pair of large, booted feet. He looked up to see Mansfield staring at him with more loathing than he’d ever seen. The laugh that had been threatening to erupt through the pain, broke out. ‘Your kid, is he retarded?’

It felt good to insult his tormentor, and as he did so, a thought struck him. Mansfield couldn’t kill him. He needed Delaney alive, his get-out-of-jail card. The thought made him laugh even more; somehow it even took the edge off the pain in his hand, face and ribs. Carefully nursing his broken fingers, he stood up.

‘You’re just one of the little people, Mansfield,’ he spat. ‘You don’t see the bigger picture…’

Delaney knew in an instant that he’d gone too far.

Within seconds Mansfield had thrown him off the bandstand. He landed with a brutal thump on the tarmac surrounding it, the rain hammering down on him. In a moment of panic he looked around, hoping to see someone – anyone – who might be able to help. But there was nobody. Just an unconscious driver and a small boy still swinging in the rain.

And Sergeant Joe Mansfield.

His face was contorted. His right arm – clutching the handgun – was outstretched. He was striding off the bandstand… towards Delaney… he was standing above him…

‘You need me!’ Delaney hissed. ‘You’ll never see the light of fucking day without me…’

Mansfield didn’t even flinch.

‘You won’t do it,’ the CIA man whispered. ‘Not in front of your boy… How much more fucked-up do you want him to be?’

No movement.

‘I can help you find Ashkani.’

Was there a sudden spark of interest in his eyes?

‘Think of my resources… I can track him down in hours… I’ll tell you where he is…’

Delaney was nodding enthusiastically.

But why hadn’t Mansfield lowered his gun?

They stood there in the rain. From the playground, Delaney could hear the regular squeaking of the swing.

‘You need me,’ he whispered again.

‘But I’m just one of the little people,’ Mansfield said, and he fired.

The driver stirred. The back of his head throbbed. He was wet through.

He pushed himself groggily to his feet, trying to work out what he was doing here, a crumpled heap in the teeming rain. He saw the bandstand and the playground. The strange child was no longer swinging. Mr Delaney was no longer taking shelter.

He walked nervously in the direction of the bandstand, clutching the welt on the back of his head. Once he reached it, he stopped in the centre of the decking and spun round.

He stopped.

A figure was lying on the ground three metres away. Perfectly still.

His hand fell, and he walked on.

He stopped a metre from the body, and now his hand was over his mouth.

Mr Delaney was identifiable only by his bow tie. His face was a mess, with five very distinct bullet wounds. He was clearly freshly dead because blood was still oozing from the flesh, and the rain was washing it away to reveal the full devastation of the impact. The shattered bone. The brain matter, clearly visible through the damaged forehead.

The driver staggered backwards. And as he looked up he thought he saw something. Two figures, perhaps fifty metres away, disappearing into the rain-haze. A grey man, one arm around the shoulders of the boy from the swing.

A moment later they were gone. The driver didn’t dare chase them. He ran back to his car, grabbed his phone with trembling hands, and called for help.