In one hand he held a rag doused with cleaning solvent from the small pot by his side and he meticulously, thoughtfully, rubbed away at the grey metal of the barrel. He liked the smell of the cleaning solvent. There was something comforting about it. Warming. Even before the Americans had trained him, when he was just a boy, the importance of cleaning your weapon had been impressed upon him by his mujahideen instructors. Indeed, he had barely been a teenager the day he first saw the horrific results a poorly kept weapon could have on the user. They had been firing guns in the wasteland on the edge of his village — just target practice. An older man had been laughing, bragging about what a good shot he was. He took aim at a pebble placed on a rock some twenty metres in the distance and fired. The gun exploded in his face, shredding his skin so that he appeared like a piece of meat. His howls echoed far and wide as, blinded, he was taken back to the village. The women had attempted to care for him, but the wound soon became septic and he had died only a few days later. A miserable, painful death.
The men had said that it was because he had not cleaned his gun. Even as a boy, Ahmed doubted that — it was probably a faulty, cheaply made weapon — but he knew then that he would never take the risk. At that young age he had decided on two things: never brag about how good a shot you are, and always clean your gun.
Back then, in Afghanistan, they had used something different — a thick oil that stuck to your fingers and stained your already dirty clothes. He had liked that smell too, just as he had enjoyed stripping down the weapons — mostly AK-47s in those days, taken from dead Soviet soldiers or supplied by the Americans.
He stopped for a moment and sneered. He really had thought the Americans were their friends back then, when they gave them money and ammunition. But not now. No, now the Americans had shown their true colours; shown exactly what the life of a Muslim was worth to them. He snorted heavily to himself and continued to clean the gun barrel.
No one would ever find him here, of that he was certain. The first thing he had done when he arrived in England was establish a number of safe houses — places he, and only he, knew about. He would never tell anyone where these safe houses were, no matter how close they were to him or how much he trusted them. That was the rule: these were places where he could disappear utterly, for weeks, even months at a time. They were chosen at random, so that nobody could second-guess where he would be staying; and they were always rented under false names — names that could never be tracked back to Faisal Ahmed.
The gun barrel was clean. He held it up to the light and looked through it. The shiny curve of its interior pleased him. Ahmed placed it back down on the table, picked up another piece and continued to polish and clean another of the satisfying metallic components.
When the cleaning process was finished, he clunked all the pieces together in order, grunting in satisfaction when the last one slotted in. He caressed the gun momentarily, as if caressing a woman, then scraped his chair back, picked up the MP5 and carried it to the side of the room. Along each wall were rows upon rows of metal shelving, firmly bolted together. The shelves were packed from floor to ceiling. Boxes of Semtex, G60 stun grenades, lined up neatly like toy soldiers. A couple of bulky Claymore mines with their long reels of detonating cord. There was an abundance of guns, too: a C8 carbine and grenade launcher, a Remington 870 with RIP tear-gas rounds and a selection of handguns. Faisal Ahmed knew that no amount of weaponry, ammunition or explosives were a substitute for his own clear thinking and tactical awareness; but the time would come when he would need firepower and it was good to know that everything was in place.
He put the MP5 where it belonged on the shelf, then turned his attention elsewhere. There was a sleeping bag and a rolled-up foam mattress. He unfurled them on the floor. Then he checked that the door to the basement was locked, before taking a small handgun from the shelf. He slotted a loaded magazine into it, rested it by his makeshift bed and turned off the light. In the darkness he clambered into the sleeping bag, but it was a long time before he fell asleep.
Sleep never comes easily, he found, when you know that someone wants to kill you.
The first time they made love it had been frenzied and quick. Kate had continued to dig her sharp fingernails into his back, noisily and vigorously responding to his enthusiasm. When it was over, they didn't speak a word: they simply lay there, her arm draped over his chest, her leg hooked over his. How long they lay like that, Will couldn't have said; but after a while he felt her hand moving gently over his torso and she was snuggling up meaningfully to him. It felt good. He rolled her over and pinned her down by her arms; Kate closed her eyes and groaned in anticipation as he kissed her.
It lasted longer the second time, but was no less passionate. When they had finished, they both fell into a deep, satisfied sleep.
It was still dark when Will awoke suddenly. He glanced over at the clock by the bedside. Half-past four. He laid back and stared into the blackness. His throat was dry and he would have liked to get up and find a glass of water; but he didn't want to wake the slumbering form next to him. So instead he remained still, with only the darkness and his thoughts for company.
Was it wrong, what he had just done? It felt strange, being with a woman other than his wife. Had he been sober, had he been thinking straight, perhaps he wouldn't have done it the first time. But as he lay there, he found that he didn't feel bad. He didn't feel he had betrayed anyone.
Betrayal. That one word brought to his mind the image of Faisal Ahmed. You can tell a lot from a photo, he thought to himself. An awful lot. Ahmed was a good-looking man. His eyes were calm. He seemed at peace with himself. At peace with what he had done.
And then Will thought of the churchyard. The cold, lonely grave where, thanks to that man, his family lay dead.
In the darkness, something became clear to him: wasting the rest of his life was no way to honour his family. Their death was only worth mourning if life was worth living. Strange how it had taken a night in bed with someone he barely knew for him to realise that.
Strange, too, how something else was perfectly clear to him now. The two men at Thames House, unwittingly, had offered him a lifeline. A way out of his bland existence. They might want Faisal Ahmed dead for the best of reasons, but in this moment of honesty Will knew one thing: he wanted him dead so that he could avenge his family. Avenge them, and move on.
As quietly as he could, he slipped out of bed. Kate stirred, but did not wake, as he groped his way out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, where he turned the dimmer light on low. His clothes were still on the floor; they felt dirty and greasy as he dragged them on. He was just pulling the belt buckle tight when the door opened. Kate stood in the doorway, naked and dishevelled. She eyed him seriously.
'Are you going?' she asked.
'I have to,' Will replied. 'I'm sorry.'
Kate inclined her head. 'I won't see you again, will I?'
Will hesitated. 'Probably not,' he answered, honestly. 'It's best this way, I promise.'
'Another woman?'
Will smiled affectionately. 'No, Kate,' he said,'not another woman. Just something I have to do.' He stepped forward and kissed her on the cheek. 'You take care, Kate,' he said kindly. 'And be careful who you take home from the pub next time. They're not all like me, you know.'
'I wouldn't know,' Kate told him. 'That's the first time I've done it. The last, probably.'
And with a half-smile, she watched as without any further word of farewell, Will descended the steps and let himself out of the flat.
It was freezing outside and Will had a raging hunger. It took him twenty minutes to find a café that was open. An inviting yellow light spilled out on to the street from the misted-up shop windows and inside it was already nearly full of workers guzzling down hot drinks and plates of fried food. Will ordered the works and sat on his own, gulping down mouthfuls of sweet tea and ignoring the tabloids strewn over his table. When the food came, he devoured it, then ordered more tea and prepared to sit it out until nine o'clock.