Firefight

'I beg your pardon?'

'Don't try and play dumb with me, Ahmed. We know the score. We are going to stop you.'

Ahmed raised his gun slightly. 'Stop me doing what?' he demanded. 'Tell me immediately or I shoot.'

'A terrorist hit. On the capital.'

For a moment, Ahmed's face remained emotionless; then he smiled. But it wasn't a smile of pleasure, it was a smile of understanding, as if something that had previously been unclear to him had suddenly been revealed.

'I see,' he replied quietly. 'So that is what they have been telling you.'

'Yeah,' Will spat. 'And it's not the only thing either.'

'That is not a surprise,' Ahmed replied, before pausing. 'My sister tells me you are a man to be trusted. Is this true, Will Jackson? Are you a man to be trusted?'

'That depends who you are,' Will replied, flatly.

Ahmed nodded his head and seemed to be considering something. Finally he spoke. 'It isn't true, of course,' he said. 'What they have told you. But you are an intelligent man. No doubt you suspected that already.'

'Not really,' Will told him. 'The intel seems pretty clear.'

Ahmed smiled again. 'Intelligence,' he almost purred. 'It is an interesting thing. It is amazing how often people can be made to believe a lie in the name of intelligence. Take my sister, for example. The whole of this country now believes she is a wicked Afghan terrorist, but you and I know that is not the truth. What you have been told about me is not the truth, either.'

'Enlighten me,' Will said, unable to stop himself sounding dismissive.

'I will,' Ahmed replied, oblivious to the contempt in Will's voice or at least hardened to it. 'You have risked your life to save my sister, it seems. You at least deserve to know why. My guess is that you have been manipulated just as I have. Sometimes we think we are knights when in fact we are merely pawns. I would guess that you are familiar with some of my history already — that I was trained by the Americans to be a mole for them within the network of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. That I was discovered and made my way back to England.'

Will continued to look balefully at him.

Ahmed inclined his head. 'My American handlers instructed me to start working for MI5, infiltrating terrorist groups in the UK and alerting the authorities to potential strikes. I was, I should tell you, extremely successful.'

'You're not telling me anything I don't know already, Ahmed.'

'Not yet, perhaps. What I think you are unlikely to know is that my orders changed.'

'What are you talking about?'

'I was instructed by the CIA to go dark.' His face became pinched. 'They had a new policy, they told me. One that they hoped would save lives.'

Ahmed paused. Will had the impression that the Afghan was scanning his face for signs of doubt.

'My new instructions were these. To instigate a series of low-level terrorist strikes across the UK. No catastrophes, no deaths. I was to do it through my network of al-Qaeda sympathisers. The Americans believed that if the British saw that the terrorist threat on their streets was real, it would keep them on-message — more likely to do the Americans' bidding whenever they came asking for help.'

Will blinked. 'You're trying to tell me that your terrorist campaign was started by the CIA?'

'Of course,' Ahmed replied.

'That's ridiculous. I don't believe you.'

Ahmed shrugged. 'I cannot control what you believe,' he said. 'Nevertheless, it is the truth. The man who sent you to kill me, his name is Donald Priestley, is it not?'

Priestley. The image of the friendly, almost avuncular American CIA official flitted through Will's head. 'How did you know that?'

Ahmed nodded. 'It was Donald Priestley that I reported to. It was all Donald Priestley's idea. He called what we were doing Operation Firefight.' He sneered. 'Because we had to fight fire with fire. A favourite saying of his.'

Will remained silent.

'Of course, MI5's intelligence network is impressive. We always knew that they would realise I was involved in these strikes, but Priestley had the confidence of somebody high up in the British intelligence services. Every time MI5 came close to discovering my location, I was tipped off by the CIA. I did the Americans' bidding for three years and they were, I think, pleased with my success rate. Casualties were low, but the profile of my attacks was high.'

Casualties were low. The very words felt like darts being hurled into Will's body. Not low enough, you bastard, he felt like saying. 'If they were so pleased with you,' he managed to ask, 'why the hell would they want me to put a bullet in your head?'

'Operation Firefight was successful,' Ahmed said. 'Maybe too successful. The British became anxious. They became the Americans' poodles and that suited the US very well. Priestley wanted me to take things further. Up a level. He wanted deaths in the UK. Collateral damage, he called it. A loss of life here to save greater loss of life elsewhere. But these would be innocent civilian lives. I refused to do his bidding. The very next day my cover was blown by the CIA. The terrorist cells I was working with found out the truth about me. I had to run. Hide.'

As Faisal Ahmed spoke, Will's mind spun around in circles. He did not want to believe it; he didn't want to believe anything that came from this man's mouth. Yet Will couldn't for the life of him understand why Ahmed would feel the need for this sudden confession and he couldn't shake off the sensation that pieces of a jigsaw were fitting together.

Yet there were still anomalies. Things that didn't make sense. 'There are other sources,' Will said. 'Independent sources from abroad. They all say the same thing: that you're planning a major terrorist strike.'

Ahmed looked contemptuous. 'More intelligence?' he asked. 'Tell me, was this so-called intelligence by any chance extorted from extremist sympathisers? Were they taken to an American black camp to have information tortured out of them?'

Will didn't reply.

'It's how they work,' Ahmed continued. 'The CIA leak information to unsuspecting sympathisers; they then extract it under duress from their victim in front of their British allies. Even the source doesn't know he's misleading his interrogators — he thinks he's having the information coerced out of him. Trust me, they've been doing this for years. I know, because they taught me how to do it. And whatever you have been told about me instigating a major civilian terrorist strike is a lie. I have turned my back on it. My plan is much more simple.'

'What do you mean?'

'I intend to stop Donald Priestley and the Americans from continuing their policy of death.'

'How?'

Ahmed didn't answer.

'Where's Latifa?'Will pressed.

Ahmed shook his head. 'Latifa is no longer your concern. Nor am I. I don't expect you to take my word for everything, but I'm sure when you confront Priestley you will see that I am telling the truth. No doubt you have been taught, as have I, to tell when somebody is lying.' He made a flicking gesture with his gun. 'Turn around,' he said. 'And walk away.'

Will didn't move. Ahmed's face became suddenly more ruthless.

'I mean it, soldier,' he said. 'Move away or I'll shoot.'

'Not yet,' Will whispered. 'There's part of your story that you left out.'

'What are you talking about?'

'Operation Firefight, or whatever the hell you want to call it, wasn't entirely without casualties, was it? What about the bomb in Knightsbridge? Outside the department store? The one that killed a woman and her daughter?'

Ahmed's face remained stony. 'A mistake,' he said, flatly. 'An extremely unfortunate one. The device was not meant to explode in that location. It wasn't part of my plan.'

'I don't care if it was part of your plan or not, Ahmed,' Will whispered. 'The people who died that day were my wife and daughter, and you killed them.'