‘Of course it is,’ said Yokely, ‘but what about the rights of the innocents who died in London? In Sydney? In Madrid? In Bali?’
‘You are going to torture me again.’
‘We’re going to get you to tell us what you know by whatever means we deem necessary,’ said Yokely. ‘It’s your call, Mr Ahmed. The ball is firmly in your court. If I was you, I’d take a piece of that mouth-wateringly delicious chicken and start talking.’
‘ Hill ’annii,’ spat the Saudi.
Yokely smiled amiably. ‘I wish I spoke Arabic, but sadly I don’t. Just one of the many gaps in my education.’
‘I will kill you,’ said the Saudi. ‘One day I will kill you.’
‘That’s what we call an idle threat. How are you ever going to hurt me?’
The Saudi stared at the American with flint-hard eyes. ‘Not everyone held here is held here for ever. Word will get out, Mr Yokely. Word will get to those who can do you harm. And they will get to you one day. Maybe not here. Maybe not in Baghdad. But maybe in your home town. Maybe you’ll get into your car one day, turn the ignition and bang!’ The Saudi shouted the final word and Yokely jumped. The Saudi laughed scornfully. ‘You have tortured me already – you tortured me before you brought me here. You killed my cousin, Husayn. You burned my brother, Abdal-Rahmaan, alive. You brutalised my sister. What more do you think your former KGB thugs can do to me?’
‘Did I say thugs?’ said Yokely, regaining his composure. ‘I’m sorry, I gave you the wrong impression. They’re doctors. Or at least they’ve been medically trained. They’ve got a host of chemical cocktails they’re keen to try on you. None has been FDA approved, of course, and the chances are that you’ll end up a vegetable, but you’ll tell them everything you know. Every single thing.’ Yokely pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘This will be the last time we meet, Mr Ahmed. I’ll be getting full reports from the Ukrainians, so I’ll have everything I need. You might as well enjoy the chicken. I gather the food over there is every bit as bad as it is here.’
Yokely picked up his mug and walked out of the room, down a corridor past two armed marines, and through a door. There were two plasma flat-screen TVs on the wall, relaying images from the two CCTV cameras in the interrogation room. A tall man with receding grey hair was sipping a can of Sprite as he watched the Saudi stare at the plate of fried chicken. ‘Ten bucks says he takes a piece,’ he said. Carl Bulmer was the type to bet on which of two raindrops would be first to reach the bottom of a windowpane.
‘You’re throwing your money away,’ said Yokely. ‘He knows we’re watching him.’
Bulmer was with the CIA, a twenty-year veteran of South America, Afghanistan and Iraq. Not that his CIA credentials were ever referred to in the Guantanamo Bay camp. The CIA operatives were described as OGA personnel, working for Other Government Agencies. It was, as Yokely knew, a rose by any other name. Bulmer wore the standard OGA attire of long-sleeved black shirt, black trousers and impenetrable sunglasses. It was as much a uniform as the orange jumpsuits they forced the inmates to wear.
‘If you don’t want to bet, fine,’ said Bulmer. He stretched out his legs and balanced his can of Sprite on his lap as he watched the Saudi.
Yokely raised his eyebrows. ‘Want to bet a hundred?’
Bulmer hesitated, then nodded acceptance. ‘A hundred it is.’ He kept his eyes on the screen. ‘I heard you were in The Hague a while back,’ he said.
‘My itinerary is classified these days,’ said Yokely. ‘You know how it is.’
‘Day you flew out, Slobodan Milosoevice had a heart-attack.’
‘An unhappy coincidence.’ Yokely laughed. ‘No great loss to the world.’
‘Word is that the two events were not unconnected.’
Yokely chuckled. ‘A butterfly flaps its wings in China and there’s a hurricane in Florida?’
‘I think the word is that the connection is a bit closer than that.’
Yokely continued to chuckle but said nothing.
Bulmer levelled a finger at the monitor. ‘You know, he said more to you in there in five minutes than he’s said to us in six months,’ said Bulmer.
‘I’m not sure that death threats count as conversation,’ said Yokely, helping himself to a bottle of water from a small fridge beside one of the desks.
‘You got him angry. That’s a start.’
‘I killed his brother and cousin,’ said Yokely, ‘but if he hates me enough, he might open up to you.’
‘Anything specific?’
‘The Holy Martyrs of Islam,’ said Yokely. ‘They’re new boys on the block but they’ve started killing hostages in Iraq.’
‘Yeah, the Lake boy. Just goes to show, all the money in the world won’t help if these bastards get you. What’s your interest?’
‘Nothing special,’ said Yokely. ‘Just want to do a favour for a friend.’ He nodded at the screen. ‘Are we putting a time limit on this, by the way?’
Bulmer glanced at a digital clock up on the wall. ‘Half an hour?’
‘Up to you,’ said Yokely. ‘He’s never going to eat it. He seems to think he can get information out – what do you think?’
‘He’s in solitary most of the time.’ Bulmer drank the last of his Sprite, crumpled the can with one hand and tossed it into a wastepaper basket on the far side of the room. He pumped his fist in the air. ‘I think he was bluffing.’
‘Yeah, me too. He’s got an ego and we can use that. He’s not seen anyone from the embassy, has he?’
‘Which? He’s got dual, right? Saudi and British?’
‘I don’t think the British Embassy staff would pass on messages to al-Qaeda, do you?’
‘Two-faced lot, the Brits,’ said Bulmer.
‘That’s the French, Carl. Anyone from the Saudi lot been to see him?’
Bulmer leaned forward and tapped on his computer keyboard. A spreadsheet filled the screen and he stared at it, brow furrowed. ‘No visitors,’ he said. ‘No requests for visits, either.’
‘Okay, so just check that he doesn’t come into contact with any other inmates.’
‘Richard, please, don’t teach me how to suck eggs,’ said Bulmer. ‘I know what solitary means.’
‘There’s solitary and there’s solitary,’ said Yokely. ‘I don’t want anyone even to hear him fart.’ He headed for the door.
‘Aren’t you going to wait and see if he eats the chicken?’ asked Bulmer.
‘I trust you,’ said Yokely. ‘Send me a cheque.’
Shepherd opened one of the three metal cases and looked at the handguns inside. Two Ingrams. Four magazines. He ran a hand over them and remembered the old cliche: guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Like most cliches, it was true. But when it came to killing people, guns made the job a whole lot easier. Knives were too personaclass="underline" it was hard to look a man in the eye and shove one into his chest. Guns could kill at a distance: you just pointed and pulled the trigger. Technology did the rest. And the Ingram was one of the best, just pray and spray. It wasn’t even necessary to aim it because its rapid rate of fire meant that anything within range would be ripped apart. Killing with a gun was a relatively simple matter. But coping with the emotional burden afterwards… That was different. He closed the case with a dull thud. The other two contained spare magazines and a hundred rounds. Button had decided they shouldn’t come up with all the weapons and ammunition up front but make the guys work for it. It would give the Branch detectives a chance to follow the weapons back to Birmingham. If they knew that more weapons and ammunition were on the way, Ali and Fazal would probably wait to launch their attack.
‘The world is going to hell in a handbasket,’ said Sharpe, pacing up and down by the entrance to the warehouse.
‘What does that mean?’ asked Shepherd.
‘It means the world’s going crazy,’ said Sharpe scornfully.
‘I know what it means, but what’s the story with the handbasket? What the hell’s a handbasket?’
‘A basket that you hold in your hand,’ said Sharpe, patiently.