Osama

dared look. JJ’s house? Caitlin? Was his murdered, brutalized partner about to appear before his eyes?

He started the disc and, with his heart thumping, stepped back to watch it.

He did not see himself. He did not see Caitlin.

He saw a dead man talking.

Thin, Middle Eastern, with a grey-streaked beard and wearing a simple, plain dishdash and a white headdress.

The nose was pronounced. The lips were slightly apart. The forefinger of his right hand was held aloft, but he was looking down, as if reading from some text that was out of shot.

The last time Joe had seen this man, he’d been shrouded in a body bag, carried by two SEALs through a compound in Pakistan towards a waiting Black Hawk. Now he lived again on this television screen.

The footage was grainy and shaky – clearly taken on a handheld camera, or even a mobile phone – but Osama bin Laden’s voice was clear enough. He spoke in Arabic, calm and measured, but whoever had made this video had intended it for English-speakers, because at the bottom of the screen were some amateurish subtitles in gaudy white letters. Rage rising in his gut, Joe read the words as the voice of bin Laden filled that quiet, dark room:

‘People of America and Britain, I address my words to you all. I begin by telling you that, although your governments spend more money on wars against the people of Allah, who built the heavens and the earth in justice, than…’

The screen crackled and blurred for a moment, then grew sharp again.

‘…once more we have shown that it is not within your power to stop the brave ones whose purpose is holy Jihad. It was on September 11 that nineteen young men were able to bring fire and death to America. And on May 11 we will have done it once more…’

The sick feeling in Joe’s stomach intensified. Suddenly only half his mind was on the screen. The other half was calculating today’s date.

‘…the infidels will be brought from the skies in balls of flame… None of you are safe… ’

He’d got it wrong. Surely he’d got it wrong…

‘…know that His law is retaliation in kind. The killers will be killed… whoever obeys Him will enter the Garden, whoever disobeys Him will be refused… by the will of the Prophet my people can strike you down with ease…’

The screen went blank. Joe continued to stare at it for a handful of seconds.

He hadn’t got it wrong. The eleventh of May was today.

Joe was on his feet and hurtling up the stairs three at a time. As he burst into the bedroom he startled Eva. Conor was still motionless on the bed. Joe strode over to the cardboard box that had contained the DVDs and grabbed the A4 sheet again. He scanned down it: the first five flight numbers were adjacent to airport codes that he recognized: Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Edinburgh, Belfast. The following five were American: Portland, San Diego, Minnesota, Detroit, Chicago.

He checked the flight times. All the UK flights were scheduled to leave at or around 1000 hours, the US flights any time between five and seven hours earlier local time, because of the time differences.

Ten planes. All in the air at the same time.

A video of bin Laden, clearly recorded before the raid in Pakistan, gloating about a fucking spectacular to take place today.

‘What time is it?’ Joe breathed still staring at the piece of paper in his shaking fist.

Eva didn’t answer.

‘What’s the fucking time?’ he yelled. He spun round, to see Eva’s pale face looking warily at him. Conor had started to cry. Joe rushed over to the other side of the room, grabbed Eva’s wrist and looked at her watch: 0744 hours. Two hours and sixteen minutes. Could he get to one of the airports on the list in that time? Not a fucking chance.

‘Joe, what’s wrong?’

He didn’t answer. Not immediately. His mind was turning over. ‘Where’s your phone?’ he said.

With obvious pain, Eva pushed herself to her feet and pulled her phone from her pocket. Joe grabbed it.

No service.

‘Fuck!’ he hissed.

‘What is it?’ Eva groaned. She’d collapsed back down onto the bed and was holding her wound. Joe found himself clutching his hair. Everything was spinning. He didn’t know what to do… ‘Joe, what is it?’

Words started to spill out of him. ‘There’s a terrorist plot. Ten planes, flight times 1000 hours UK time. They’ll all be in the air at once. Ashkani’s behind it.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I just know!’ Joe roared.

Eva looked stricken. ‘What about security? I mean, it’s impossible, isn’t it, to get explosives on-board a plane nowadays? All the checks… How are they doing it?’

Joe put a lid on his exploding temper. ‘Could be anything,’ he hissed. ‘Maybe the fucking pilots are involved… or the baggage handlers. I don’t know. If some fucker wants to blow themselves up…’ He was pacing up and down, feeling like he was being ripped apart. He had to do something, warn someone. But who would listen to him? The whole fucking world thought he was unhinged and dangerous. An anonymous call would be ignored. He didn’t know how the strike was going to happen, and he couldn’t reach any of the airports in time.

And – he looked over his shoulder at Conor and Eva – he needed to be here.

‘You have to go,’ Eva said.

He blinked at her.

‘I mean it, Joe. You have to go now.’ She winced as she spoke, and clutched her side again. ‘I’ll be fine. I can look after Conor…’

‘You’re too weak.’

She stood up again. It was clearly an immense effort.

‘Ten planes, Joe,’ she whispered. ‘How many lives is that? Hundreds? Thousands? How many more people are you going to let him kill?’

The question hung in the air between them. And Joe knew she was right. He nodded and crossed to the other side of the room. The Glock was still in its box. Almost as a reflex, he clicked out the magazine, then loaded and locked it. ‘You know how to use this thing?’ he asked.

Eva nodded, but when she took the weapon from him, she held it tentatively, like an amateur.

‘You won’t need it,’ Joe said. ‘We’re in a safe house. I don’t think anybody except Ashkani knows about this place.’ He looked over at Conor. ‘Take care of him,’ he said.

‘What are you going to do?’

Joe narrowed his eyes. The answer to that question wasn’t even clear in his own mind.

‘Anonymous tip-offs are no good,’ he said. ‘They get hundreds a day, and without knowing how they’re getting their explosives on-board…’ He closed his eyes. ‘I can’t turn myself in – nobody will listen to me. And I can’t get to any of those airports, which means I can’t get anywhere near the target flights.’

Eva couldn’t stop the panic rising in her face. ‘But if you can’t persuade anyone to ground these ten flights…’ she breathed, ‘what can you do?’

Joe opened his eyes again. A sudden calm had descended on him. Like in the old days, before an op. Everything was clear. He knew what he had to do.

‘Joe?’

‘Give me your watch.’

She obliged and he looked at it: 0746 hours. Two hours and fourteen minutes to go. Joe put the watch on his wrist and opened his shoulder bag. The Galil .308 was there, separated into its component parts. Lurking at the bottom was the ammo he had confiscated from the scene: the match-grade rounds that had been loaded into the weapon, but also a small box of HE incendiary rounds. Overkill – literally – for taking out an individual, but for what