Jimbo translated. The father sagged and the rope tightened round his neck. Then he whispered something in Arabic.
‘What did he say, Jimbo?’
‘He said okay, he’ll talk.’
Yokely grinned triumphantly. He pushed the stool, which shuddered. The man yelped and struggled to keep his balance. ‘Tell him to be quick about it, Jimbo.’
Wafeeq parked the van and walked quickly to the house. Rahman jogged to keep up with him. Wafeeq always had Rahman with him when he left the house. He had served with Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard and Wafeeq had once seen him kill a man with his bare hands. Azeem was standing at one of the bedroom windows and waved. Wafeeq waved back. Sulaymaan opened the front door as he reached it. ‘Where is the hostage?’ he asked.
Wafeeq ignored him. He strode along the hallway and into the main room. Kamil was on his hands and knees on a prayer mat, his forehead on the ground.
‘We have to move,’ said Wafeeq. ‘Abdul-Nasir is downstairs?’
‘Of course.’ Kamil straightened and frowned at him. ‘What has happened?’ he asked.
‘The man they caught worked for the same company as Mitchell. He had a transmitting device. They are hunting us, my friend.’
Kamil stood and rolled up the prayer mat. ‘But we knew that. We knew they would look for him. No one will find him here. Inshallah.’
‘This is different,’ said Wafeeq. ‘The man was different. We kill the infidel and we leave. Now.’
‘But then everything will have been for nothing.’
‘No, we just bring forward the deadline. We say that the intransigence of the British government has brought about the death of their subject. We film his death and then we leave.’
The Major and O’Brien pushed the two Arabs into the back of the Land Cruiser, their hands tied behind their backs. Shortt climbed into the driving seat and O’Brien got in beside him. ‘We’ll be right behind you, Jimbo,’ said the Major.
‘Right, boss,’ said Shortt. He put the 464 into gear and drove off down the road.
The Major went over to Yokely and Shepherd, who were waiting by the second Land Cruiser. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.
‘Why don’t we call in a chopper?’ asked Shepherd.
‘We can drive in twenty minutes,’ said Yokely, ‘and I don’t want Wafeeq any more spooked than he already is. If he hears choppers, he’ll run. We need to get in place first. I’ve already called in troops, so we’ll have the perimeter secured.’
‘That doesn’t help Geordie,’ said Shepherd.
‘We’ve got time, trust me,’ said Yokely.
‘This isn’t just about capturing Wafeeq, is it?’ said Shepherd.
Yokely put a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s about getting Geordie out of harm’s way,’ he said. ‘Wafeeq is the icing on the cake.’
‘That had better be true,’ said Shepherd.
Muller walked up with an Uzi. ‘I’m coming with you,’ he said.
‘John, this is now becoming a military operation. Like I said before, you’re a civilian.’
‘Yeah? Well, I’m the civilian who has the keys to that vehicle, so without me you’re going nowhere.’ Muller held up the keys to the Land Cruiser and jingled them.
‘We don’t have time to argue,’ said Yokely.
‘Exactly,’ said Muller. He pulled open the driver’s door and climbed in. ‘So shut the fuck up and get in.’
Yokely opened his mouth to argue but the Major spoke first. ‘John’s okay,’ he said.
‘It’s on your head, then,’ said Yokely. He got into the front passenger seat and took out his mobile. The Major and Shepherd got into the back. As Muller started the engine and drove away from the house, Yokely phoned Simon Nichols. ‘Simon, do you have visual on us?’ he asked.
‘We have you,’ said Nichols.
‘Follow us and let us know if there are any roadblocks ahead.’
‘I’ll give you plenty of warning,’ said Nichols. ‘How’s Shepherd?’
‘All very James Bond,’ said Yokely. ‘Stirred but not shaken.’
‘Does he know how lucky he is?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Yokely. ‘He knows.’
‘Couldn’t help but notice that you put two of the Iraqis in the first Land Cruiser,’ said Nichols. ‘What’s that about?’
Yokely grinned. ‘Watch and learn,’ he said.
The Sniper watched with a growing sense of amazement. What he was seeing made no sense at all. He was lying on an inflatable bed, covered with a piece of sacking. He had chosen the vantage-point carefully. The building below him was six storeys tall and he could see for miles. There were two main roads each within six hundred metres of the building, both used regularly by American troops. There was a fire escape at the rear, which offered a quick way down to a labyrinth of alleyways. He had used the rooftop four months earlier when he had killed an officer leading a foot patrol – shot him in the small of the back as he bent down to tie a shoelace, shattering the spine just below the body armour.
Two patrols had driven along the nearest main road but they had been moving too quickly. The Sniper didn’t waste bullets: he only shot when he was sure he would make a kill, and he had the patience to wait as long as it took. He had two bottles of water in the shade of a chimney-stack, and a plastic bag in case he needed to defecate. The Spotter was lying next to him on a rush mat. Like the Sniper, he was staring at the house some three hundred metres away, wondering what was going on.
They had watched the two Land Cruisers drive up together and park round the corner from the house. Ten minutes after they had arrived, an army Humvee joined them. A soldier climbed out of a Land Cruiser and went to talk to the soldiers in the Humvee. Shortly afterwards two Bradley fighting vehicles arrived with another Humvee. A dozen soldiers in full body armour climbed out and gathered round an officer.
Two helicopters had flown in from the south, then gone into a slow, banking turn that brought them in to a hover about a mile away from the military vehicles. The Sniper recognised them: they were Blackhawks, MH-60L Direct Action Penetrators. They each came equipped with two 7.62mm Miniguns, electrically driven Gatling guns that could fire up to four thousand rounds a minute, and M261 nineteen-tube rocket-launchers, capable of firing a wide range of rockets including armour and bunker penetration and anti-personnel flechette warheads that could rip apart an entire platoon, accurate up to two miles. There was also a 30mm chain gun, which could fire 625 high-explosive rounds a minute with pinpoint accuracy, and two M272 launchers each with four 100-pound Hellfire missiles that could destroy a tank five miles away at the touch of a button. The DAP Blackhawks had been equipped for special-forces operations and were just about the most deadly machines operating in Iraq.
It was what had happened next that had mystified the Sniper. Two civilians wearing body armour had pulled two Iraqis out of the back of a Land Cruiser. One of the Iraqis had been given a handgun and the other a Kalashnikov. Then a Westerner in shirt and trousers climbed out of the second Land Cruiser. He kept his hands behind his back as if his wrists had been tied, but from his vantage-point the Sniper could see a handgun tucked into his belt in the small of his back.
The two Iraqis and the Westerner walked to the house. The American soldiers fanned out, spreading round the street and taking up vantage-points. They appeared to be preparing to storm the house. The Bradley fighting vehicles kept their engines running, ready to move closer to the house, and the Blackhawks continued to hover. The Sniper knew better than to fire while the hunter-killer helicopters were in the vicinity: they were equipped with a full-range of visual, infrared and radar sensors. If they even suspected he was on the roof, they would have no hesitation in destroying the building, no matter who else was in it.