‘I swear, I don’t… You must see I thought he was here…’
Mansfield cracked back the ring finger as easily as flicking a light switch.
Delaney was sobbing now, trying desperately to talk, but struggling to get the words out through the pain. ‘I swear… I swear I don’t know… I would tell you… he’s been playing me all this time…’
Mansfield had narrowed his eyes. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I thought he was my man… I thought he was arranging things for me…’
‘What things?’
Delaney closed his eyes again.
‘The planes,’ Mansfield breathed. ‘He was doing that for you?’
The American slowly shook his head.
‘What the hell? Why do you want to blow up British planes?’
Delaney coughed again, and struggled to get his breath. ‘Ashkani tipped me off,’ he continued, even more weakly than before. ‘He told me Al-Qaeda were planning a strike. Five planes in the UK, five in the US. Bin Laden’s swansong. The UK planes were Ashkani’s personal responsibility. He said he didn’t know which US flights were to be targeted. Only bin Laden had that information…’ The words faded away on his lips; the world seemed to spin and it was hard for him to keep his thoughts in line. After a few seconds, though, he felt Mansfield clutching a third finger and he managed to spit out some more words in a choked, throttled voice. ‘I told him to go through with the UK attacks… and we would get the remaining intelligence from bin Laden…’
‘Why? Why?’
‘To keep you on side, of course. The British. To keep you in the Middle East. To make you put pressure on our administration to do the same. Americans don’t have the stomach for any more body bags. But the little people…’ he coughed again ?‘… the little people don’t understand how many more body bags there’ll be if we don’t have a presence there…’
He started to spit pathetically. The blood that was still oozing from his nose had flooded over his fat upper lip and into his mouth, sticky and metallic.
‘You said Ashkani was playing you?’ said Mansfield.
Delaney managed a weak nod, another almost-laugh. ‘I should have guessed… a feeble old man sitting in a compound in Pakistan… Ashkani had it all set up… make us raid the wrong aircraft and when we were looking the other way…’
Everything was spinning again. He stopped talking. Mansfield had withdrawn the gun and was getting to his feet. Delaney looked up, glad that this animal, who seemed to revel in the infliction of pain, was moving away from him. He was still holding his gun, but now Delaney saw he had something else in his other hand: a digital voice recorder. There was a faint click as he switched it off.
‘The CIA will claim responsibility for the death of my partner,’ Mansfield said. ‘You’ll inform the British authorities that the raghead I did in Barfield attacked me on your orders. Fail to do that, or if anything happens to me or my son, this tape will be on every fucking website in the world. ’
‘Along with the sound of you coercing me,’ Delaney noted.
‘You think people will give a shit about that?’
Delaney didn’t.
He summoned every ounce of energy he could and pushed himself up into a sitting position. Mansfield was staring at him with utter contempt, but he could deal with that. Insane though he obviously was, the son of a bitch clearly didn’t intend to kill him.
It was still raining hard. The kid was still swinging. ‘That boy,’ Delaney spat. ‘What is he? Simple?’ He touched his good hand to his broken, swollen nose and winced before examining the blood on his fingertips. He peered around for his glasses, and thought he could see them at the edge of the bandstand. He started towards them, but immediately found his way blocked by a pair of large, booted feet. He looked up to see Mansfield staring at him with more loathing than he’d ever seen. The laugh that had been threatening to erupt through the pain, broke out. ‘Your kid, is he retarded?’
It felt good to insult his tormentor, and as he did so, a thought struck him. Mansfield couldn’t kill him. He needed Delaney alive, his get-out-of-jail card. The thought made him laugh even more; somehow it even took the edge off the pain in his hand, face and ribs. Carefully nursing his broken fingers, he stood up.
‘You’re just one of the little people, Mansfield,’ he spat. ‘You don’t see the bigger picture…’
Delaney knew in an instant that he’d gone too far.
Within seconds Mansfield had thrown him off the bandstand. He landed with a brutal thump on the tarmac surrounding it, the rain hammering down on him. In a moment of panic he looked around, hoping to see someone – anyone – who might be able to help. But there was nobody. Just an unconscious driver and a small boy still swinging in the rain.
And Sergeant Joe Mansfield.
His face was contorted. His right arm – clutching the handgun – was outstretched. He was striding off the bandstand… towards Delaney… he was standing above him…
‘You need me!’ Delaney hissed. ‘You’ll never see the light of fucking day without me…’
Mansfield didn’t even flinch.
‘You won’t do it,’ the CIA man whispered. ‘Not in front of your boy… How much more fucked-up do you want him to be?’
No movement.
‘I can help you find Ashkani.’
Was there a sudden spark of interest in his eyes?
‘Think of my resources… I can track him down in hours… I’ll tell you where he is…’
Delaney was nodding enthusiastically.
But why hadn’t Mansfield lowered his gun?
They stood there in the rain. From the playground, Delaney could hear the regular squeaking of the swing.
‘You need me,’ he whispered again.
‘But I’m just one of the little people,’ Mansfield said, and he fired.
The driver stirred. The back of his head throbbed. He was wet through.
He pushed himself groggily to his feet, trying to work out what he was doing here, a crumpled heap in the teeming rain. He saw the bandstand and the playground. The strange child was no longer swinging. Mr Delaney was no longer taking shelter.
He walked nervously in the direction of the bandstand, clutching the welt on the back of his head. Once he reached it, he stopped in the centre of the decking and spun round.
He stopped.
A figure was lying on the ground three metres away. Perfectly still.
His hand fell, and he walked on.
He stopped a metre from the body, and now his hand was over his mouth.
Mr Delaney was identifiable only by his bow tie. His face was a mess, with five very distinct bullet wounds. He was clearly freshly dead because blood was still oozing from the flesh, and the rain was washing it away to reveal the full devastation of the impact. The shattered bone. The brain matter, clearly visible through the damaged forehead.
The driver staggered backwards. And as he looked up he thought he saw something. Two figures, perhaps fifty metres away, disappearing into the rain-haze. A grey man, one arm around the shoulders of the boy from the swing.
A moment later they were gone. The driver didn’t dare chase them. He ran back to his car, grabbed his phone with trembling hands, and called for help.
TWENTY-FIVE
An old, thin man shivered in the dark. He was naked, and had been for days. He did not know for sure where he was, but he assumed it must be America. Nowhere else could he be treated to such satanic torture.
He was underground. He knew that because, having arrived in this place by helicopter, he had been forced down a flight of stairs and had not ascended since. There were two rooms down here: the cell in which he now sat, with its ice-cold concrete walls and the overpowering stench of rancid, mouldering human waste from where he had been forced to defecate and urinate in one corner; and the other room, which he had learned truly to fear, and where they had taken him when he first arrived.