him away. After the camp outside Tehran, Spartacus felt like a giant military city teeming with personnel and kit. A place that a week ago had been almost like home was a hostile environment now.
‘I need to get cleaned up,’ he said to Ableson.
‘Later: they’re waiting for you. Need something to eat?’
Blackburn instinctively turned towards the canteen but Abelson steered him away.
‘I’ll bring you something.’
He escorted Blackburn to an unmarked Portakabin.
Somehow he needed to get the message across about Solomon.
Inside, waiting for him: Dershowitz and Andrews. Blackburn’s heart couldn’t sink much further but it managed a few more inches. Dershowitz was peering at his laptop and Andrews had a cell phone pressed to his ear. They were as he had left them, as if they had been waiting there for him the whole time, waiting to take him down. His own private apocalypse.
60
FOB Spartacus, Iraqi Kurdistan
Dershowitz glanced up at him and frowned.
‘You look like you need to clean up a little, kid.’
‘I was told to come straight here. And if it’s all the same to you, Sir, could you refer to me by name? I’m Sergeant Blackburn.’
‘Sure, kid,’ he smirked.
Andrews pocketed his cell.
‘Okay. So talk us through your day.’
‘Bad day at Black Rock, huh?’ said Dershowitz.
‘What?’
Blackburn wasn’t sure what that was a reference to, but it wasn’t good.
‘And if it’s all the same to you, kid, you can call me Sir, when you answer.’ Dershowitz slammed the table hard with the flat of his hand as he said ‘Sir’.
‘Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir.’
Andrews looked as though he was suppressing a bad case of wind.
‘Just go from the top.’
He described the scene when he got out of the Osprey, climbing the avalanche of rubble from the shelled chalet and finding the door that led into the rear bunker.
‘Whoa. Hold up,’ said Andrews, making a stop sign with his hand. ‘Need to get a handle on your motivations. You took yourself off pretty fast into that wrecked building. That not a little reckless?’
He looked down and began typing furiously.
‘The conditions were such that it appeared the building might have contained an HVT and was liable to cave in.’
‘So in you went.’ Andrews with his smile again. ‘And was anybody home?’
They wanted detail. He gave it to them.
‘Sir, there were three fatalities. All recently deceased. One on the first floor of the house and two in the bunker, one of whom was in the pool, the other at the side. I concluded they had been struck by falling masonry during the bombardment.’
Dershowitz spoke without looking up.
‘So now you’re a pathologist. Lot of strings to your bow, Blackburn.’
‘Let’s talk about Lieutenant Cole. What happened?’ asked Andrews.
He looked from one to the other.
‘It’s a simple question.’
He decided to focus on Dershowitz, the more aggressive of the two. These men listened to liars for a living. Simple question. Simple answer.
‘I don’t know what happened to him, Sir. There was a further collapse. I figured my best chance was to find the escape passage I had seen on the plans.’
Dershowitz smiled. Blackburn didn’t know which was worse, his smile or his stony silence. The smile with the silence wasn’t much fun either.
Ableson knocked and entered without waiting. He was carrying a Coke and a burger wrapped in waxed paper.
‘Get the fuck out. Can’t you see we’re busy here?’
Blackburn almost felt relieved that he wasn’t the only focus of Dershowitz’s ire.
‘Tell me about Cole.’
‘What about him, Sir?’
Dershowitz frowned.
‘What’s that supposed to mean, “What about him”? He’s your CO for fuck’s sake. Don’t you give a shit?’
He picked up a waste bin and swept the Coke and burger into it.
Blackburn could feel the anger exploding inside him. He refused to give them the satisfaction of showing it. He had to stay in control. His head was pulsing with pain. He was by nature a truth teller. His mother always praised him for this, regardless of the misdemeanour. ‘
‘Your buddy Campo says he lost radio contact with you after you entered the bunker. He says he reported it to your commanding officer and that he, Lieutenant Cole, bravely decided to attempt to rescue you.’
‘There was a fall in the front of the chalet shortly after I lost contact with Campo, Sir. It was at that point that I decided that it was neither safe nor possible for me to go back the way I came and so I resolved to find an alternative exit, based on my reading of the plans we were supplied with.’
They stared at him blankly. Blackburn gave a shrug.
‘I had found the WMD in the bank in Tehran along with evidence suggesting two more. We had intel suggesting the chalet was a possible location — I wanted to finish the job I started in the bank.’
‘This isn’t a job interview, kid. Enough with the self-regarding rhetoric. Your CO died trying to rescue you.’
None of them said anything for several seconds.
Why are you so suspicious of me? Blackburn wanted to ask. What have I done that is so wrong? And the answer came straight back. You have killed your superior officer. That’s about as bad as it gets.
‘Sir, the last time we spoke I told you about Solomon. That was the name on Bashir’s lips when he died. And as it’s the only clue we have about the remaining two nukes, I have reason to believe that we should take that name very seriously. May I remind you about the maps I found in the bank vault, of Paris, and New York?’
Neither of them were listening. Andrews had been studying his laptop. He gestured at Dershowitz and they both stared at the screen. Suddenly his face brightened.
‘Ah, there you go.’
He angled it in Dershowitz’s direction, whose eyes widened so much they looked as if they were about to pop out of their sockets.
‘Blackburn, you are so fucked.’
61
Northern Iran Airspace
Kroll sat up front beside Dima. In the back, Vladimir raided the police helicopter’s first aid kit and set about attending to Darwish, who was laid out on the floor of the rear compartment.
‘We could really do with some blood. Anyone?’
He crashed against the bulkhead as Dima threw the chopper into a tight left.
‘Sorry everyone. Power lines.’
Kroll gripped the sides of his seat with white knuckles.
‘When did you last fly one of these?’
