anything – her pupils expanded and contracted as she tried to focus. But then her vision seemed to clear. ‘Joe?’ she whispered.
‘We’ve got to get you back to the house.’ Joe’s voice was breathless. ‘You’ve lost a lot of blood…’
‘Conor… ’
‘He’s… OK. He’s here. Eva, do you think you can walk?’ He knew he couldn’t safely carry them both, not in the state they were in.
Eva closed her eyes. With a great effort she nodded, then tried to push herself up onto her elbows, before sinking back into the sand.
Joe put his hands under her arms and helped her to a sitting position. Her face was creased with pain, but she gave no word of complaint. Moments later she had one arm around Joe’s shoulder as he bent to pick up Conor, who was still lying, eyes open, on the sand, shivering but otherwise motionless.
It was still not fully light. The beach was deserted. His son over his shoulder, his oldest friend leaning heavily on his other side, Joe staggered slowly back towards the cliff. They needed shelter. They needed care. The nearest place was a kilometre from the clifftop. It was a deserted house where the body of an old woman lay rotting at the bottom of the stairs. A place where Joe was hopeful of finding something that might tell him more about the man he had just sent to his death.
It was not in Mahmood Ashkani’s nature to smile often, but he did sometimes. It was a sign of how much Mansfield’s continued refusal to die had unnerved him that confirmation of his death had lifted a weight from his shoulders.
He glanced at the passenger seat, at his laptop and satellite phone, and at the small data stick that looked so ordinary but whose contents would, within a few hours, have been viewed by half the people on the planet. Then he glanced at the dashboard clock. Seven thirteen. No need to increase his speed. He had plenty of time.
He arrived at his destination half an hour later. It was the bleak entrance to a deserted slate mine that had long since been abandoned. He parked his car behind a ten-metre-high pile of slag, quite confident that nobody would disturb him here. He had not chosen this place for that reason, however, but simply because it was the right place to be. He plugged his satellite phone into the side of his laptop before doing the same with the data stick.
Then he turned his eyes to the sky.
Not long, he thought to himself.
Not long now.
TWENTY
Herb Sagan did not like Mason Delaney. He didn’t like the way he surrounded himself with pretty boys, or the way he so obviously felt superior to everyone. But he had to hand it to him. First bin Laden, now this. The President’s Chief of Staff, Jed Wallace, who was sitting with Sagan and Delaney, clearly felt the same.
Wallace’s face was white. ‘How did you
The glance that Sagan and Delaney shared was only momentary, but filled with meaning.
‘Your predecessor was very fond of that question, Jed,’ Delaney sighed.
‘Mason, the President’s going to—’
‘The President, Jed, does not want to know where this information came from, believe me. It’s a lot easier for him to
Wallace looked uncertain. ‘You know what his manifesto was, Mason. An end to torture… extraordinary rendition…’
Delaney started to stand up. There was a new edge to his voice. ‘Well, Jed, if the President would rather have a 9/11 of his very own…’
‘For God’s sake sit down, Mason,’ Wallace snapped. Delaney gave a look of mild surprise at this display of authority, before settling back once more. Wallace turned to Sagan. ‘Herb, run it past me one more time. If I’m going to wake him, I want to have my ducks in a row.’
Sagan nodded. He had notes in the bag by his feet, but having worked on this since breakfast time he didn’t need them. ‘We have evidence of a coordinated mid-air strike over American soil. Five flights in total. Projected death toll, just over 1000 people. Thanks to Mason’s source, however, we have the precise flight numbers. We know which aircraft the terrorists are targeting. Tampa to JFK, Boston to LAX, Orlando to Montreal, Philadelphia to Seattle, Cincinnati to Newark. They all depart between 0500 and 0505 hours, so they’ll be in the air simultaneously.’
‘And in time for the whole eastern seaboard to wake up to the news,’ Mason murmured.
Sagan continued: ‘There’s a shampoo factory in Delaware. At midday yesterday we apprehended a US national who admitted receiving money from an unknown source in return for filling certain bottles of certain batches with the chemicals necessary to create binary explosives. The batches in question were earmarked for drugstores beyond the security gates at Tampa, Boston, Orlando, Philly and Cincinnati. They left the factory two weeks ago and there’s no way to trace them.’
Wallace’s face was still pale. ‘I’m assuming we need to ground all flights in and out of the US?’
Sagan and Delaney exchanged another glance.
‘That won’t be necessary, Jed,’ said Sagan. ‘We have the situation under control…’
‘How?’ Wallace breathed.
‘We’re going to isolate the terrorists before they get on the planes. We’re already coordinating with the Transportation Security Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And of course the Feds. We’ve planted air marshals among the passengers on each flight. We’ll load them onto buses from the gates, but none of them will get within sniffing distance of an actual aircraft. Once we’ve quarantined the passengers, we’ll search them. In a few hours’ time we’ll have a bunch of Al-Qaeda brains to pick. Without anything approaching coercion, naturally.’ He gave Wallace a flat look.
There was a silence in the room.
‘The President will need to give the final go-ahead for the strategy,’ Sagan said.
‘He’ll want to know the potential risk to the other passengers.’
‘I’m not going to sit here and tell you it’s risk-free, Jed.’
Wallace nodded. ‘Tampa, Boston, Orlando, Philadelphia, Cincinnati.’ He repeated Sagan’s list. ‘You’re sure that these five flights are the only ones that are being targeted?’ He had directed the question towards Delaney, who affected a look of surprise at having been consulted.
‘I’m ninety-three per cent sure,’ he said. He smiled at Sagan. ‘Herb does love his statistics.’
Wallace ignored the barb. ‘I’ll wake the President now,’ he said. ‘Wait here. I’ll be back with an answer.’
He left the room. Sagan and Delaney sat silently, two enemies, joined by a common purpose.
‘Ninety-three per cent, Mason?’ Sagan asked.
Delaney raised an eyebrow. ‘Maybe ninety-two.’
The two men went back to their wordless waiting.
Under normal circumstances it would have taken no more than fifteen minutes for Joe to get from the beach to Ashkani’s safe house. Carrying a traumatized Conor, and with Eva limping along beside him, it took nearly an hour. By the time they approached the front door, which Joe had left unlocked, he had given up offering Eva words
