But then his eyes widened. There was movement in the doorway. A flash of red caught his eye and he saw it was coming from something the silhouette was holding. He looked down at his naked, bony chest. A tiny red dot of light flickered over his heart.
He could not smile, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t glad.
The three bullets, fired in quick, ruthless succession, did not kill him instantly. There was a brief moment, as he fell to his side and blood spewed from his ulcerated mouth, for him to rejoice.
He was to be welcomed into Paradise.
His struggle was complete.
Joe had crossed four borders in seventy-two hours. A cross-Channel ferry train to Marseilles and from there to Alicante. Another boat to Oran, Algeria. Only when he was in Africa, where technology was less advanced and a few banknotes could buy him his way out of any difficulty, did he feel in any way confident showing his passport at an airport. Even so, boarding a flight to Asmara International Airport in Eritrea had been tense.
Not as tense, though, as landing. If their presence had been logged, they could expect a welcoming party the moment they touched down. Joe knew this, which was why, as they flew over the parched continent, he had said everything to Conor that he wanted to say. That he was proud of him. That he was sorry. That from this moment on there wouldn’t be a single day that he wasn’t there for him. He hadn’t told him all there was to tell – that could wait until he was old enough and well enough to understand. In any case, all that was over. At least it would be soon.
Conor hadn’t responded. Not in words. He hadn’t spoken since the fire. He had stared out of the aircraft window, as totally silent as he’d been since the fire. But Joe knew, by the squeeze of his son’s hand, that he understood. That it was OK between them. Or as OK as it could ever be without Caitlin.
Conor was clutching his hand again now, nervously, as they queued in the bleak, sweaty terminal, the only white faces here, both of them bruised and scarred. The instant he’d walked into the building, Joe had checked for security cameras. There were none that he could see, but he kept his head bowed anyway, and pulled his son’s baseball cap a little further over his eyes. They walked towards the immigration queue, ignoring the armed guards.
The queue was short, but slow. A single booth, with a dark-eyed official scrutinizing every passport thoroughly. There were only ten passengers ahead of them, but it was still fifteen minutes before he and Conor approached the booth. He handed their passports over silently, squeezing Conor’s hand a little harder as he did so.
The immigration official started on the boy’s passport, examining every page, looking back and forth from the document to its owner. Joe looked straight ahead, past the two guards standing five metres beyond him, AK- 47s strapped to their bodies, towards the shop fifteen metres beyond them advertising duty-free goods and ‘Gift Articles’.
The official spoke. ‘Mr Conor?’ he asked, in a dead, unenthusiastic voice. He looked at Conor, one eyebrow raised. Conor looked back.
‘He won’t answer you,’ Joe said quietly.
The man looked unimpressed. He placed Conor’s passport on the counter in front of him before turning his attention to Joe’s. Opening it, he immediately found the five 100-nakfa notes Joe had slipped inside. He removed them without shame, placed them in a breast pocket of his uniform and continued examining the passport as if nothing had happened.
After thirty seconds he spoke again, his voice slow and ponderous. ‘Are you coming to Eritrea on business,’ he asked, ‘or pleasure?’
Joe looked at him, but it was not the official’s face that he saw.
He saw Caitlin, her eyes pleading in the moments before she had died.
He saw Eva and the knife twisted further. Poor Eva, who had risked everything for him and expected so little in return. He saw her sitting by him at the bandstand. Lying motionless on the beach. Staring through the fire, half her hair burned away, seconds before the flames had consumed her.
And he saw the face of a man of Middle Eastern extraction, with a hooked nose, stooped shoulders and black hair streaked with grey, responsible for the death of these two innocent women. The women that, each in a different way, Joe loved. In Joe’s imagination the Middle Eastern man was struck dumb with terror as he, Joe, held a .38 snubnose to his forehead. The weapon that would kill him just as soon as Joe had tracked him down.
Joe blinked. The customs official was waiting for a reply.
‘A bit of both,’ he said.
GLOSSARY
AQ: Al-Qaeda
ARU: armed response unit
CO: commanding officer
DEVGRU: United States Special Warfare Development Group (SEAL Team 6)
DOD: US Department of Defense
EST: Eastern Standard Time
HE: high-explosive
HEI: high-explosive incendiary
HESCO: flat-packed containers filled with dirt or sand to create a protective barrier
ICOM: intelligence communication
IED: improvised explosive device
JPC: jumpable plate carrier
klick: kilometre
L Detachment: a territorial unit attached to 22 SAS, under the command of E Squadron
LZ: landing zone
MIT: murder investigation team
MRAP: mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicle
MRE: meal, ready to eat
OC: officer commanding
PIRA: Provisional IRA
plate hanger: armoured operations (ops) vest
PTSD: post-traumatic stress disorder
REME: Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers
RTU: order to return to unit
RV: rendezvous
SOCO: scene of crime officer
SOP: standard operating procedure
SUV: sport utility vehicle
UAV: unmanned aerial vehicle
For a first glimpse of the latest
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