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
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
