NINETEEN
Steven was aware that his breathing had become rapid and shallow and that cold sweat was forming on his brow. Not for the first time in his life real fear was coming to call and this time there could be only one outcome; he was going to die a painful death. If Timothy Devon’s demise was anything to go by, a scalpel blade would be used to transport him to the outer reaches of agony and humiliation in a slow symphony of mutilation while all the while taking care that he remained conscious. Only he would know the final irony that there was nothing he could tell them that they didn’t know already.
To all intents and purposes, al-Qaeda’s bluff had worked. Neither he nor anyone in the security services knew what they were really up to. John Macmillan’s faith in him had been misplaced: he had failed to come up with the truth in what must surely be his last mission and there was no comfort to be found in the knowledge that he wouldn’t be around to find out just what it was that al-Qaeda had planned.
Steven’s stomach cramped when he heard Ali start to come back downstairs. He was about to face hell on earth and he hoped that he could do it without letting his daughter Jenny down. He was a doctor but he had lived as a warrior and he wanted to die like one but the dice were stacked against him. Ali knew well enough how to turn any man into a mewling, puking, jibbering wreck of his former self, a pathetic figure pleading to be put out of his misery. All the training he’d had in the past to help him resist interrogation techniques would count for nothing in this situation. This was something you could not prepare for.
‘So tell me about Earlybird,’ said Ali. His voice seemed even and calm but there was no mistaking the cold menace in it.
‘It usually catches the worm,’ said Steven, thinking stupidly that he sounded like Roger Moore playing James Bond.
Ali looked at him, shook his head, gave a wry smile and selected the poker from a set of fireside tools that beside an old stove that appeared to have lain unused for many years. He affected an examination of it but Steven knew that he was just giving him time to think about what was to come. Physical pain was only part of the torturer’s art; the other element was psychological. Steven silently prayed that Ali would hit him over the head with it so hard that either death or loss of consciousness would intervene on his behalf but with a sudden swinging motion, Ali brought it low and horizontally into Steven’s right knee cap making him cry out in pain.
‘Want to try again?’
It was almost a minute before Steven was capable of speech but a movement of the poker in Ali’s hand helped return the power. ‘It’s a committee that assesses potential threats to national security,’ he gasped, fighting the waves of pain from his injured knee.
‘Of course it is,’ said Ali. ‘You know that; I know that. So what’s the latest threat to national security perceived as being?’
‘You are.’
‘I’m suitably flattered,’ replied Ali. ‘And just what am I going to do?’
‘You’re planning an attack on our cities using Cambodia 5 virus.’
‘All on my own?’ asked Ali.
‘Presumably not,’ said Steven. It made Ali raise the poker again and Steven gasp. ‘No!’
Ali lowered the poker and said, ‘How many people does Earlybird think we have?’
‘They don’t know.’
‘How many do they think we’ll need?’
‘They don’t know, quite a few, I suppose.’
‘What’s the estimate?’
‘There isn’t one.’
Ali came closer. ‘No estimate?… That suggests to me that someone isn’t taking us seriously,’ he said, watching for Steven’s reaction like a cat eyeing a cornered mouse.
‘Of course they’re taking you seriously,’ said Steven, knowing his last answer had been a bad mistake. ‘How could they not?’
‘But no estimates?’ Ali persisted. ‘No projections from Porton Down about how many people would be required for such an operation? How much virus would be needed, wind speed, the effect of rain…’
‘Of course they were done,’ said Steven, trying to rescue the situation.
‘One might almost think that you didn’t really believe it was going to happen?’ said Ali.
‘It was deemed too late to try and stop your attack,’ said Steven. ‘Our security people simply didn’t know enough so they adopted a different strategy and put all their efforts into producing a vaccine against Cambodia 5 and tough shit, it worked: they’ve done it. There was no point in killing Leila. The vaccine is already in production. You’ve lost. You’ve left it too late.’
‘That is a shame,’ said Ali with patronising slowness. ‘So how can I salvage something from the ashes? What am I going to do now that British Intelligence has out-thought me?’
Steven looked at him and saw that the question had not been rhetorical. Ali was expecting an answer. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Put yourself in my position. I need an alternative strategy to hit my enemy with. What am I to do?’
‘How the hell should I know? I’m the last person on earth to ask that question.’
‘You do yourself a disservice, Doctor and I am asking you the question,’ said Ali who had taken a velvet pouch from inside his jacket and was unrolling it to reveal three surgical scalpels, one with a curved blade and two with different sized straight ones. He slid the plastic guards off the ends, ‘Tell me, Doctor… what am I going to do now that my plans for a Cambodia 5 attack are in ruins?’
‘I have no fucking idea,’ exclaimed Steven, unable to take his eyes off the scalpels and feeling his imagination soar into overdrive.
‘Good to hear,’ said Ali. ‘But you will understand that I do have to be very sure of that…’
‘Why don’t you tell me?’ gasped Steven, mounting a last minute appeal to the man’s vanity. ‘Just what the fuck does al-Qaeda think it’s going to do now that we have the vaccine? Make a new video of Osama in his latest cave? Just how scary is that?’
Steven had been prepared for a sudden backlash of violence but none came. Instead, Ali smiled and said, ‘Very good, Dunbar. At this point I am supposed to lose my temper and tell you everything before I kill you just like the villains always do in movies. No, I prefer my way. You… tell… me… What am I going to do?’
There was a scraping noise from above that both Ali and Steven heard at the same time and looked up. For the first time, Ali looked less than supremely confident but he didn’t lose his nerve. He held a scalpel to Steven’s throat to ensure his silence and then forced the velvet that the scalpels had been wrapped in inside his mouth before taping it in place with the same tape that Steven had seen used on the body bag for Leila. Ali put out the lights and started to climb the stairs. He had put down the scalpels in favour of an automatic pistol.