Firefight

'About what?'Will asked. His throat was desperately dry and his mouth had an unpleasant taste in it.

'About Priestley, Will,' Pankhurst replied, like a patient teacher explaining something to a child. 'About how he died.'

'Ahmed shot him,' Will said.

'We know that, Will. And you shot Ahmed. But things don't stack up at the scene. For example, why did Ahmed have two guns — one in his hand and one on the floor?'

'I—' Will hesitated as he desperately tried to kick his slow-moving brain into gear.

But Pankhurst interrupted him. 'Be quiet, Will, and listen to me. You've got what you wanted. You've played it out as far as it can go. But the game stops here. I don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to know that there's more to Priestley's death than meets the eye. Nor do the Americans. They've just lost one of their top men and they're going to want to get to the bottom of it. That means coming after you. I can help you, Will, but not until you tell me what the hell this is all about.'

Will breathed in sharply through his teeth. The pain in his shoulder was agonising, but he tried to put it from his mind. Pankhurst was right. If the Americans suspected something, they'd be coming after him. He didn't know if he could trust the DG of MI5, but right now he was the lesser of two evils.

'Have you ever heard of Operation Firefight?' he asked.

Pankhurst stared at him blankly.

'Then you'd better listen carefully.'

And then he told him.

Pankhurst's face was expressionless as the extent of Priestley's deceit unfolded. He said nothing, simply letting Will explain, in detail, what he knew. When he had finished, Pankhurst remained silent for a while. He stepped over to the window of the room, pulled back the curtain an inch or two and glanced outside.

When he turned around again he had the air of a man who had made a decision.

'A lot of things suddenly make more sense than they did ten minutes ago,' he said, quietly.

'I'm glad you think so,' Will commented.

'Trouble is, with Faisal dead, there's no way you can prove what you just told me.'

'For fuck's sake,' Will whispered. 'Why would I make it up?'

'Oh, don't worry, Will. I believe you — for what it's worth.

But you've got to see that this is too politically sensitive to go any further up the chain. You understand that, don't you?'

Will said nothing.

'Everyone's going to deny it, Will. Everyone's going to pretend it never happened. You're going to be the wild card, though. You're going to be the one they'll want to silence. And they're going to come to me, Will, sooner than you think — put pressure on me to hand you over. If they do that, I'm not going to be able to say no. Not if you're still around. You need to get out of here. You need to disappear. And soon.'

There was a silence as Pankhurst's words sunk in.

'How long have I been out?'

'Forty-eight hours.'

'And where are we?'

'Just off Great Portland Street. We kept you out of the public hospitals as a safety measure. I have to go now, Will. They can't know you've tipped me off. I'll keep them off your tracks for as long as I can, but they won't be relying on me in order to learn your location.' He approached the bed again and looked down at Will, whose eyesight was clearing now. The DG's face appeared sharper. 'You've done a good job, Will, but now you're on your own. If the Americans think I'm involved in what went on there it could have repercussions that nobody wants, so I can't have any more face-to-face contact with you. I hope you understand. But if you need anything — any help from Five — get in touch discreetly and we'll see what we can do.'

Will nodded his head, weakly. 'Thank you, sir.'

'Thank you,Will,' the DG said quietly. Will watched as he turned and swiftly left the room.

Will lay in silence for a few minutes, trying to make sense of what Pankhurst had just said. He knew nobody could nail Priestley's death on him, but Pankhurst was right — the Americans would put two and two together about him killing Priestley and they'd want some answers. Answers he didn't want to give. He pushed himself on to his elbows once more, this time managing to stay up, even though it felt as though it took up all his energy. Slowly he heaved his legs over the side of the bed, then sat still for a moment while he allowed a moment of nausea to pass.

The intravenous needles were taped on to his skin. He fumbled at the sticking plaster and managed to pull it off before pulling out the needles as slowly as his shaking hands could manage. A small amount of blood seeped from the punctures in his flesh, but he barely noticed it against the altogether more overwhelming pain of the bullet wound. Will pushed himself up on to his feet and took a couple of shaky steps before being forced to stop and hold on tight to the foot of the bed, his legs like jelly.

As he stood there, the door opened and a nurse walked in. She was young, with pretty blonde hair and grey-blue eyes that looked aghast at Will when she saw him out of bed. 'What are you doing?' she gasped, stepping forward and putting her small hands against Will's naked arms. They felt warm on his skin. 'You have to get back into bed,' she urged him. 'You're not well enough to be up and about.'

Will gritted his teeth against the pain, then brushed her aside. 'I'm discharging myself,' he growled. Looking around, he saw some clothes draped over a chair. He staggered towards it and started to dress, wincing painfully as he pulled a shirt over his wound.

'But the doctors—'

'Fuck the doctors,' Will growled, impatiently, before immediately regretting it. The poor girl was only doing her job. He turned round to look at her and saw an expression of thin-lipped disapproval on her attractive face.

'I'm going to find one,' she stated, sternly. 'You need a clean dressing. Now stay there.' She spun on her heel and left the room.

Will continued to dress, the adrenaline surge created by the sudden urgency doing a great deal to clear his head.

Once he was dressed, he looked around. By his bedside there was a clear plastic bag with his personal belongings — a wallet, a watch and Faisal Ahmed's mobile phone. It was the sight of the phone that brought everything flooding back to him. Ahmed's final minutes. His plea to Will to take care of his sister. His last, reckless moment of madness. Will had expected to feel elated that Ahmed was dead, but he didn't. He didn't really feel anything. Just a pain in the shoulder and an urgent need to get the hell out of there before anyone else caught up with him.

He opened the door and looked both ways down the corridor. There was a glass-fronted nurse's station opposite, but it was empty, and about halfway down the corridor was a trolley full of clean linen. To Will's relief there were no people. He didn't know which way was the exit, so at random he turned right into the corridor and followed his nose. He hadn't got far, however, when he heard voices approaching, so he opened the nearest door and hid.

The room in which he found himself was a medical store cupboard, neatly packed with hundreds of small boxes and bottles of medicine. It had a clean, antiseptic smell — the smell of fresh bandages — and Will thanked his good luck. He found a stash of sterilised swabs and antiseptic lotion; then he scanned through the drugs until he located the one thing he was sure he was going to need. Orally administered morphine would make it possible to cope with the pain when he was out of there. Finally, he found a set of freshly laundered doctor's overalls. Putting them on was painful and difficult, but they meant that he would have a better chance of walking along the hospital's corridors unchallenged.

He remained in the store cupboard for several minutes before quietly pushing the door open a few inches. He listened carefully. Nothing, so he slipped out.

Minutes later he was walking past the reception. It took every ounce of energy he had to walk normally, but it paid off. Ignoring the excruciating pain in his shoulder, he walked out into the street.