Faisal Ahmed's eyes widened slightly as some of his smug omniscience seemed to be knocked out of him.
'You might as well kill me now, Ahmed, because I swear to God I couldn't give a shit what excuses and lies you throw in my path. You murdered my family and I will not rest until I've avenged them. I will not rest until you are dead, just like them.'
'I am sorry for your loss, Will Jackson,' Ahmed said. 'Truly sorry. I know what it is to lose one's family. But you would be wise, my friend, not to follow this course. I think it has been shown that I am the better soldier. That I have the better mind. And anyway, if you kill me, another person will take my place. Is it not better to target the real criminal behind this? That is what I intend to do and you would be well advised to leave me alone to do it.'
He raised the laser sight to Will's head once again.
'Turn around,' he repeated, 'and walk away.'
The eyes of the two men were locked. For a moment Will considered disobedience, but a stronger instinct kicked in. Faisal Ahmed had already shot two people tonight; he wouldn't hesitate to make it a third. And if that happened, he would never pay for what he did to Will's family.
In an instant, Will drank in every feature of Ahmed's face. He wanted to be sure that he would recognise it again without even thinking. Then, slowly, he turned his back on the Afghan and started walking.
One pace.
Two paces.
Three paces.
He was several metres away when he heard Ahmed's voice again. More distant this time, but with a strange sense of urgency.
'Make no mistake about it,' Faisal Ahmed called. 'I have no quarrel with you. But if you interfere with what I have to do, it is I who will kill you.'
Will stopped, then turned. The path ahead of him disappeared into the darkness.
Faisal Ahmed was nowhere to be seen.
SIXTEEN
The sun rose upon the country house and upon the dead bodies of Mark Drew and Nathan Kennedy.
There was no way Will could ever recount the precise number of dead bodies he had seen in his life. Hundreds, certainly. Like an abattoir worker, he had become used to corpses and the sight of horrific wounds did not make him shudder as they might other people. Death had been his job for most of his adult life.
But some deaths were different. He had only been flung together with Drew and Kennedy a few days ago, but he realised, as he sat there with them, that they had formed a bond — a bond that had been shattered by Faisal Ahmed.
Deaths, he knew, were easier to take when you had someone to blame. Back in his Regiment days, blame had been an easy thing to dish out. It was them and us. Black and white. Clear cut. And someone to blame, he realised as he sat amid the devastation of the room, was what he had been seeking when he agreed to go after Faisal Ahmed in the first place. In the two years following his family's death, he had been wandering in the dark, not knowing why it had happened or whom to blame. And then he had learned about Ahmed. It was as if he had been given the final piece of a jigsaw and all he had to do was slot it in place.
Now though, things had changed. He had come face to face with his family's killer. And though he did not loathe Ahmed any less, if what the man had told him was true the apportionment of blame was not so simple.
Who was to blame for the death of his wife and child? Faisal Ahmed and his bomb that went wrong? Or Donald Priestley and the CIA? Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.Will had been in enough situations where that was true; but there were limits and Operation Firefight — if it even existed — went far beyond those limits.
And what of Drew and Kennedy? Who was to blame for their deaths? Ahmed? Priestley? Or Will himself, for bringing them into this situation, then being outwitted by the man they were intending to capture? The idea made him bang his fist against the wall in frustration. Jesus, he thought to himself. Why the hell does everyone around me seem to end up dead?
Faisal Ahmed, of course, would blame Priestley. Priestley would blame Faisal Ahmed. Nobody took responsibility for their actions. And so the memory of the dead was abused, trampled upon, forgotten.
In the last few hours, the world had grown more complicated. What was more, Will couldn't shake the feeling that the dead around him were waiting for his response.
The mobile phone attached to the laptop rang, making him jump. It could only be one person — Pankhurst. No one else knew the number. And if Will didn't reply, the DG would know something was up — this place would be crawling with spooks before he knew it. But Will needed to get his head straight, to work out his next move, and he couldn't do it here. He grabbed a sturdy bag from their stores, then filled it up with equipment. The NV binoculars, grenades, ammo and, of course, weaponry. Almost as an afterthought he grabbed the ephedrine tablets. God knows when he was going to get a chance to sleep again. He nodded, briefly, at the lifeless bodies of Drew and Kennedy, then walked out of the room. As he did so, he thought he heard Kennedy's voice. Get the fucker for me, Jackson, it said. Get the fucker.
Will headed through the forest. He moved quickly, running uphill not so much out of a sense of urgency as because he wanted to feel his body receiving a bit of punishment. It seemed only fair, after all. Soon he was at the top of the Downs. It was still too early for anyone else to be up there, and he was glad of the solitude. Looking down, he saw the sprawl of the nearest provincial town. He knew there was a railway station, so he started jogging downhill.
It was nearly eight o'clock by the time he got to the platform for the train to Waterloo. He wondered if they had found Drew and Kennedy's bodies by now; if so, they would know it was a possibility that he himself had bought it, given that he hadn't been in touch. That suited him. It gave him a bit of time.
From Waterloo he crossed London to Paddington. He stowed his bag in a left-luggage locker, then hit the streets to find some scran. Sitting in a café waiting for his food, a cup of hot, sweet coffee in front of him, he tried to get his head straight.
It seemed like an age ago that Pankhurst had interrupted Will's morning visit to Laura and little Anna. So much had happened. Will felt a surge of guilt as he remembered the random night of lust he had spent with Kate, the journalist from the pub; and he realised that, out there in the freezing wilds of Afghanistan, for the first time in two years Laura and Anna had not been the first thing on his mind. The only thing on his mind. He suppressed an urge to go back to Hereford, to the grave, and apologise. Apologising to the dead was useless, he thought to himself as his breakfast arrived. Anderson, Drew and Kennedy wouldn't expect an apology. They would expect him to go out there and do the right thing.
But sometimes it was difficult to know what the right thing was.
With a pang, Will felt Laura's absence more keenly than he had done in months. She was good at things like this, at seeing to the heart of the matter. At putting Will on the right track. What would she urge him to do? To hunt down Faisal Ahmed and seek revenge on her account? Or to do as the Afghan had said? Ahmed's words rang in his ears. If you kill me, another person will take my place. Is it not better to target the real criminal behind this?
Will shook his head. He couldn't do it. He couldn't let Ahmed walk free. And yet, if what he had told him was correct, Ahmed was not the only one to blame for Laura and Anna's deaths or for the deaths of the SAS soldiers he had led on this mission. Donald Priestley was complicit, at least as much a murderer as Faisal Ahmed.