Osama

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