Strike Back

SIX

Porter glanced at Layla in the elevator. They were moving swiftly up towards the tenth floor, where all the top brass had their offices. One shot, thought Porter. That’s all I’m going to get at this. Within an hour, I could be back on the streets.

A brief flicker of doubt crossed his mind. This might end up costing me my life. Then again, what sort of life is it anyway?

The elevator cruised to a halt, and as the door opened, Porter stepped out onto the thickly carpeted corridor. He’d been waiting back down in the interrogation room for three hours before they’d said they were ready to talk to him. Plenty of time to practise my lines, he told himself.

He trod swiftly down the corridor, following as Layla led the way. There were no windows on this floor of the Firm: the building has already suffered one rocket attack by a dissident IRA group back in 2000, and the walls were now built of thick, armoured steel, but there was no way a window could be made completely secure, so they had got rid of them. There was a soft artificial light along the corridor, and the walls were decorated with striking pieces of modern art. The main conference room was fifteen yards down from the elevator, sealed off behind a frosted-glass door. Its entrance was guarded by two men, neither of them in uniform, but both with MP-5 assault rifles strapped to their chests.

‘Porter,’ said Layla, pausing before the door to the conference room, ‘if you want to make yourself look like a bloody idiot, that’s up to you. If you make me look like one as well, then I’m going to have your balls chopped off. Is that clear?’

Porter ignored her, walking inside. The room was at least thirty feet long, and ten wide. It was dominated by a thin glass table, with black leather chairs all around it. There were pots of coffee and bottles of mineral water distributed along it. On the left-hand wall, there was a row of flat, black, plasma screens: they were tuned to Sky News, CNN, BBC News 24, Fox News and al-Jazeera, all with the sound turned down. On the opposite wall, there was a bank of computer screens and a table of telecoms kit. Lots of kit, Porter noticed, but you wouldn’t learn anything here you wouldn’t find out from watching TV at home. They don’t trust me enough to let me see any sensitive intelligence.

The lion’s den, thought Porter as he took another step forward. This is what the Christians must have felt like when they got tossed into the Colosseum. Except at least they had some faith in themselves.

Sir Angus was sitting at the head of the table. And directly to his right was Perry Collinson.

Porter’s eyes flashed towards him, the contempt unconcealed.

Collinson returned the look, and as he did so a thin, detached smile crossed over his lips. It was more than fifteen years since Porter had last seen him, but he still looked in remarkably good shape for a man in his mid-forties. His hair had grown darker, but there was still plenty of it. There was a little more flesh on him, but he was still lean and trim.

‘John, sit down,’ said Layla quietly.

She pulled out a chair at the head of the table. He could see how her manner changed as soon as she saw Sir Angus: in control when she was interrogating him, she suddenly became quiet in the presence of the boss. No doubt about who’s in charge of this place, Porter noted. No doubt either that he scares the crap out of the lot of them.

‘You’ve turned up rather unexpectedly, Mr Porter,’ said Sir Angus. ‘And I suppose we’ll find out in the next few minutes whether you are unwelcome or not.’

Porter nodded, but remained silent. Don’t open your mouth more than you need to, he told himself. It’s never done you any good before, and it probably won’t now either.

Sir Angus waved a hand around the table. ‘Let me make the introductions,’ he said, nodding to each man in turn. ‘Peter Thornton, the man in charge of your old Regiment, the SAS. Sir Gerald Daniels, the Chief of the Defence Staff. James Middleton, who runs the Foreign Office’s Middle East desk. You’ll probably recognise Geoff Bramley, the Secretary of State for Defence. Jim Muir, from Downing Street, who runs the press operations. And, of course Sir Peregrine Collinson, the Prime Minister’s special envoy to the Middle East.’

‘We’ve met before,’ said Collinson.

Porter didn’t flinch. ‘I believe so,’ he said quietly.

There was something about Sir Angus’s tone when he mentioned Collinson’s name that suggested he didn’t like him very much. Join the club, mate.

‘Let’s forget the poxy reunions, shall we, boys?’ snapped Muir. ‘There’s a poll out in the Evening Standard this morning showing that 75 per cent of the British public think British troops should be taken out of Iraq rather than have fucking Katie Dartmouth executed. So shall we just get down to sodding business?’

Porter noticed that Muir was doodling a picture of a woman with huge breasts and a very short skirt on the notepad lying in front of him on the desk. He looked back at Sir Angus.

‘So you think this Hassad man will speak to you?’ said Sir Angus.

‘That’s right, sir,’ said Porter. ‘Tell him there is an SAS man who spared his life in ’89, who lost two fingers on his left hand.’

Sir Angus nodded. ‘And if he’ll talk …?’

‘Then send me out to negotiate,’ said Porter.

‘Who is this guy, anyway?’ snapped Muir. ‘Where the fuck did you find him?’

‘Actually, he found us,’ said Sir Angus. ‘He came in this morning —’

‘Jesus, I can’t fucking believe it,’ said Muir, his tone exasperated. ‘We spend a couple of fucking billion a year on our security services, and we have to rely on some bloke who wanders in off the street. Christ Almighty. Your budget’s getting chopped in the next spending review, along with your balls.’

Muir was scribbling even more frantically on his pad — the breasts on the woman were growing larger and her skirt shorter.

‘He was one of our men,’ said Peter Thornton. ‘Porter was in the Regiment from ’88 to ’92.’

‘And he says Hassad will talk to him,’ said Sir Angus.

‘I don’t think we need him,’ said Collinson, leaning forward on the table.

Porter looked towards him, but made sure not a single muscle on his face even twitched.

‘No offence, Porter,’ said Collinson. ‘Good to see you again, and all that. But we’ve got men scouring the Middle East, looking in all the usual rat cellars, and we’re bound to turn up something. You’ve been out of this game for a long time.’ Another thin smile started to spread across his lips. ‘And all in all, it’s a shame you didn’t kill the man seventeen years ago.’

‘You …’ Porter was about to continue, but he stopped himself at the last moment. Looking up the table, he could see Sir Angus flinch as soon as Collinson spoke. So long as he’s against me, I’m in with a shout, he realised. Within the Firm, your enemy’s enemy had always been your friend. I can use that, he realised. So long as I play it right.

‘If you don’t need me, I’ll understand, sir,’ said Porter quietly, looking straight at Sir Angus, then glancing towards Muir.

‘And how many other leads do you have?’ said Muir to Sir Angus.

‘At this moment, precisely none,’ said Sir Angus. ‘And however confident Perry might be, the truth is we don’t have much of a clue where she is. Could be the Lebanon. Could be Syria or Jordan. They might even have taken her to Iraq.’

‘We’ve talked to Mossad,’ said Sir Gerald Daniels. ‘They’ve got the best network of spies throughout the Middle East, and even they don’t have a clue where Hassad might be hiding the woman. They can’t even give us any pointers as to why Hezbollah are pulling this stunt now.’

‘Looks like this guy is the best chance we have,’ said Muir.

Sir Angus looked down the table. ‘Please try not to screw it up.’

Porter felt a surge of adrenalin shooting through his veins: maybe, just maybe, I’ve pulled this off. He glanced at Collinson. He could see a flash of irritation pass across his face, but within the next few seconds it was replaced by a relaxed smile. At his side, Layla stood up, saying she would get the technicians to put through the call. Hassad hadn’t given them a phone number. It was too dangerous: even a mobile phone could be tracked by the American satellite systems, and the Firm could always borrow the CIA kit for a day. Instead he’d given them a Skype number, which allowed him to make a call over the Internet. The call would be routed through the Web, and would contact Hassad at the other end. The technicians had been trying to use the number to get a location, but it was impossible. The call was routed though a hundred different Web servers and computers, some of them just Internet cafés in the back streets of Damascus or Cairo, and some of them home computers that had been hijacked by viruses. There was no way of telling where the call had come from. Hezbollah, along with al-Qaeda, were experts in using the Internet to communicate safely, with no chance of their location being cracked.

‘The guy’s a fuck-up, we can’t trust him,’ said Collinson suddenly.

The technicians were still fiddling around with the Internet connections. The Skype call was going through so many different routers, it was taking several minutes just to reach Hassad. He’d answer, there was no question of that. He’d already been in touch to confirm he’d taken Katie hostage, and to show them the webcam that was going to broadcast her execution live to the world next Saturday night. Wherever he was holed up, he had an Internet connection, and it was kept live twenty-four hours a day. It was just a question of patching the call through.

Porter could feel his heart thumping. He knew it was still possible to blow this.

‘We’ve read the files,’ said Peter Thornton. ‘On Porter’s one and only combat mission for the Regiment, three men died. It was the worst round of casualties since the Falklands, and there was nothing as bad until Iraq One. So, no, he didn’t exactly cover himself in glory. But no blame was officially attached to Porter, and …’ He paused, deciding not to continue along that path. ‘We haven’t seen him or heard from him for at least a decade. So his record isn’t great, but it doesn’t disqualify him either.’

‘Why are you doing this?’ asked Bramley, looking straight at Porter.

‘To help my country, sir,’ he replied, his tone even and controlled. ‘And that young girl, well, I’ve seen people held hostage in the Lebanon and it’s pretty bloody rough.’

‘That’s good enough for me,’ insisted Sir Angus. ‘I say we let him make the call.’

Just then Layla switched on a speakerphone placed at the centre of the conference table. ‘We have Hassad Naimi on the line,’ she said softly.

The room went quiet. Each man sitting around the table was suddenly rigid with anticipation.

Sir Angus leant forward on the table, speaking clearly so that his voice could be picked up by the phone. ‘There’s a man here who says he saved your life,’ he said. ‘An SAS guy with two fingers missing on his left hand.’

There was a pause, almost audible on the line. But Hassad said nothing.

The entire room remained silent. At his side, Porter could hear Layla taking a sharp intake of breath.

‘Know him?’ snapped Sir Angus impatiently.

There was another long pause. Nobody was looking at Porter. They were staring at the table.

‘No tricks,’ Hassad replied. ‘The woman dies at eight on Saturday.’

The voice was pinched and dark, with a slight American accent to it.

‘Do you know this man?’ repeated Sir Angus.

Another pause. ‘It makes no difference …’

Porter stood up, and walked five paces along the table. Leaning over, he wiped a thin film of perspiration from the back of his neck. Looking at the speakerphone, as if he were looking straight into the eyes of the man on the other end of the line, he started to speak. ‘You said you were so grateful I was an “amiat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun”,’ he growled. ‘A debt is a debt. All I ask is that you meet with me.’

The pause was even longer this time. One, two, then three seconds during which the only sound in the room was the muffled hiss of the speakerphone. ‘When can you be here?’ said Hassad.

‘Where is here?’ said Porter.

Everyone in the room exchanged glances.

‘I can’t tell you,’ said Hassad swiftly. ‘But if you fly to Beirut … then we can collect you.’

Porter glanced up at Sir Angus. He’d already scribbled one word down on a piece of paper, and was pushing it down the table.

‘Thursday,’ said Porter. It was Tuesday today, so that gave him less than forty-eight hours to get ready. ‘I can arrive in Beirut on the Thursday-morning flight.’

‘Then I’ll make arrangements for you to be picked up,’ says Hassad. ‘I owe you a conversation, I acknowledge that. But any tricks, and I’ll slice off your head right after I kill the girl.’

Silence.

The phone connection had already been severed.

Up at the head of the table, Porter could see Sir Angus glance at Collinson, and he could see the anger written into the creases around the man’s mouth. ‘Looks like you’ve got a job as a negotiator, Mr Porter,’ said Sir Angus. ‘Welcome to the team.’

Porter stood up straight, and started walking back to his own chair. The perspiration was still running down his back, but hopefully no one would notice it. ‘I’ll need payment,’ he said.

Sir Angus stiffened. The fingers of his right hand were tapping on the tabletop. ‘I thought you were volunteering to help your country,’ he said coldly.

‘I did that when I was younger, thanks,’ growled Porter. ‘And I ended up in the gutter.’

‘Then how much?’ said Sir Angus.

‘Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, paid into my bank account tomorrow morning.’

Sir Angus glanced down at the papers on his desk. ‘You haven’t even got a bloody bank account,’ he snapped. ‘You haven’t even had a proper job for seven years.’

‘Then run down to sodding Barclays and open one,’ said Porter. He could feel his confidence growing now he’d spoken to Hassad: they needed him now. If he could just put enough money in the bank to take care of Sandy, well, then at least she’d have some respect for his memory. That would make it worthwhile, even if he didn’t return from the mission.

‘I’m risking my life for you,’ he said.

‘A quarter of a million pounds is a lot of money,’ said Sir Angus.

Porter was resting his hands on the edge of the table. He could feel the blood pumping through his veins as the argument took hold of him. ‘You don’t learn much on the streets, except that most people don’t give a fuck about their fellow man, but you do learn this,’ he said. ‘When people are desperate they’ll do just about anything. I reckon I’m the last bloke in England you want back on the payroll, and that means you’re desperate. So you’ll pay all right.’

Sir Angus was about to say something, but along the side of the table Geoff Bramley had already raised his hand. ‘Just pay it,’ he said. ‘We’ll send the bill to the Chancellor. Always good to ruin that miserable Scottish bastard’s morning.’

Porter nodded towards the defence minister. He’d lost two fingers in the Regiment, and they’d never even paid him a proper pension, so this was the least they could do for him. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Let’s get the details sorted. If I die on this mission, and let’s face it, we all know there is a pretty good chance that I will, then I want the money to go to my daughter Sandy. Set the account up in our joint name, and make sure the money is paid in before the plane takes off.’

‘Agreed,’ said Sir Angus wearily. ‘If you need a certain colour of socks, be sure to let us know, and we’ll see if it can be arranged.’ He smiled at his own joke, but his expression quickly turned serious again. ‘Layla’s going to get you cleaned up, and back into training,’ he says. ‘We’ve got twenty-four hours to get briefed and to decide our tactics.’

Layla had already stood up, her expression purposeful and businesslike. Porter started to follow her towards the door. ‘One other thing, Mr Porter,’ said Sir Angus. ‘What the hell is the “amiat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun”?’

From the right side of the desk, the Foreign Office’s James Middleton looked up. A thin man, with a balding head, and a shirt that seemed at least one collar size too small for him, he had remained silent throughout the entire meeting so far. ‘It’s a reference to the Society of Muslim Brothers, Sir Angus,’ he said. ‘They are the most extreme and secretive of fundamentalist Muslim sects. They were set up in Egypt in 1928, and its offshoots include Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, the whole bloody lot of them. But the Society is where it all started — and many people think it still controls the entire Muslim fundamentalist movement. Evidently Hassad is a member, and when he referred to it to Porter all those years ago he was acknowledging the extent of his debt to him. Just to mention the name of the Society to a Westerner is a mark of extraordinary respect, and places the speaker under an obligation that he can never break.’

Porter smiled, reserving his widest grin for Collinson, still fuming at Sir Angus’s side. ‘Looks like I’ve got honorary membership,’ he says. ‘Praise be to sodding Allah.’