Danger Close (25 page)
I’d arrived at a decision. I’d told Bang-Bang and the girls I’d be back in a few hours and I walked away. I passed Sadie, who was checking the corpses of all the people she’d shot around the scrapyard. We exchanged ironic salutes and I handed her my AK. I didn’t want to see it again today. I walked through the crowds and the cordons and back into Sparkhill. I needed to change my last two 500 Euro notes. And I needed to ring Mo.
46
October 13th
The rain had cleared. I looked up at the Essex sky. Me and Bang-Bang were standing in her mum’s garden. The last week had been somewhat hectic as the government had scrambled to tie up the loose ends and get all the MOD people out of the way. Birmingham had been declared a disaster zone. Half the Cabinet had descended on the crime scenes and were blathering away about the overwhelming need for community cohesion at this difficult time.
They’d never found Chris Fletcher, aka Lionheart, either. He hadn’t been in the chase car that Roadrunner shot up. His face hadn’t been detected on the systems again and he’d vanished without trace. At that point I’d given up listening to the news and just concentrated on the text messages. Roadrunner had been arrested at a police cordon shortly afterwards, and when all her outstanding warrants came up, that was it, she was off to jail for six months.
We had an invite from the Colonel to the Special Forces Club tonight and I needed to get this squared away beforehand. I looked back through the patio windows. My mum and Mrs Kirpachi were handing out the inevitable samosas. Teacher was chatting up Sags. Priya was cleaning her daughter Daisy’s face with a napkin. Mr Kirpachi was behind his newspaper. Mishy and Fuzz were trying to get the Sky box working. Mishy was partially deaf in one ear. Fuzz wasn’t going to be flying anything for weeks with that bandaged arm. Duckie had made good on her promise and had gone to Marbella, and had sent a text. It read “I am going to write about this shit, rather than doing it. xXx.” And Maryam had tried to walk out of Sandwell General A and E with that infected gunshot wound, and was now on a drip. What a mess. Still, most of us were alive.
And now I had something to ask Bang-Bang.
Bang-Bang pointed at a square of patio that apparently was important and I stood on it. She fixed me with that wonky gaze and batted her eyelashes once… twice. ‘So Rizwan Sabir, what you got to tell me?’
‘Well for once in your life Holly Kirpachi, Fox Princess and Queen of the Raccoon Army, I reckon I figure you’re gonna be speechless.’
I took out the little box and opened it to show the ring. Mo and his family had done good. You could always get a good jewellers in Sparkhill. I didn’t need to go down on one knee or anything because she knew. Bang-Bang glared at it and then punched me in the chest with a small fist. ‘
Bastard
. Of course. Yes. You got me.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yes, Rizwan Sabir. Ha ha, I’m Holly Sabir. I’m Holly Sabir! Holly Sabir-Kirpachi? I need to work on my signature.’
I placed the ring on her finger and she laughed. And that was it. She gave me the longest kiss and leant her head into my shoulder. The she went ‘ouch’ as she touched her scabbed-up lip. I remembered Westfield, Afghanistan, Paris… all the times I thought I’d lost her. We had looked into the abyss. The whole country had stared into hell and at the last moment, had been pulled back. We hugged and we looked at the people behind the French windows. I yelled at them. ‘You can come out now!’
And we exchanged a knowing look. We knew, deep down, that we were both fated to die in a hail of bullets like Bonnie and Clyde. Just not today or next week. Inshallah. We’d chosen our fatal path, but at least we’d now die as husband and wife. And that was good enough.
She leant into me. ‘Now what, bhai?’
‘Now we take a break from this nonsense.’
We went out into the garden to feed the birds.
Glossary
Aimpoint sight- A reflex or “red dot” small arms sight
Akhi - Brother (Arabic)
AKS-74U - Shortened carbine form of the AKS-74 assault rifle, highly prized by jihadis to denote leadership status
ALARP - Air-Land Refuel Point
ANA - Afghan National Army
ARV - Armed Response Vehicle
Astaghfirullah - I ask Allah for forgiveness
AW50 - .50 calibre sniper rifle
Beta - Son (Urdu)
Bhai - Brother/cousin (Urdu)
Chinstrapped - British Army slang for exhausted
COBR - Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms - used for emergency planning
CONTEST 2 - UK Home Office counter-terrorism strategy
CPNI - Centre for the Protection of the National Infrastructure
CP Team - Close Protection Team
CZ85 - Czech 9mm semi-automatic pistol. Rated as one of the best combat pistols ever manufactured.
Desi - People from the Indian subcontinent or South Asia
Dope Chart - Tables of ballistic drops and windeage effects for a sniper rifle
Emir - Leader (Arabic)
Emperor Mong - Mythical figure who leads British Army squaddies astray with stupid ideas
Fisabillillah - For the sake of or in the way of Allah
FRU - Army Force Research Unit, responsible for agent - handling
GIGN - Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale – French military special forces group responsible for counter-terrorism and hostage rescue
Haji - US military slang for insurgent
HUMINT - Human Intelligence
IMINT - Imagery Intelligence
IMVU - Instant Messaging Virtual Universe - an online virtual reality website
INSCOM - US Army Intelligence and Security Command
Jark - Originally referring to planting a tracking device in a weapon or vehicle
JSIW - UK armed forces Joint Services Interrogation Wing
M14 - US selective fire automatic rifle firing 7.62 NATO calibre rounds
Minimi - Light machine gun made by FN Herstal
MMORPG - Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
NAAFI - Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes. Runs recreational establishments needed by the British Armed Forces
NPIA - National Policing Improvement Agency
NVGs - Night Vision Goggles
PPSH-41 - Russian World War Two-era submachine gun. Still used in the Middle and Near East. Valued by US troops for its high rate of fire and stopping power.
RWW - SAS Revolutionary Warfare Wing – unit of the SAS responsible for subversion and guerrilla uprisings
RMP - Royal Military Police
Rupert - British Army officer
RV - Rendezvous
Salwar kameez - Traditional South Asian dress
Second Life - An online virtual world
Septics - (Septic Tanks) Yanks
SF - Special Forces
SO15 - Also known as Counter Terrorism Command, SO15 is a Specialist Operations branch within the Metropolitan Police Service
SOCMINT - Social Media Intelligence
Supermarket Crazies - A gang that terrorised Belgium in the Eighties with random raids and massacres
SWP - Socialist Workers’ Party. Extremist group dedicated to overthrowing democracy and replacing it with one-party Trotskyism
USO - United Service Organizations Inc. Provides services and live entertainment to US troops and their families
Walt - “Walter Mitty”, someone trying to be something they’re not or just acting important.
Walther P88 - Semi-automatic combat pistol. Expensive, compact and highly-prized due to its accuracy.
X-Ray - Terrorist
About the Author
Charlie Flowers was born in Eastern Europe sometime in the late Sixties and arrived with his family in Britain in 1975. After training as a journalist in London he had a varied career as reporter, roadie, truck driver and record label boss. In the late Nineties he formed two cult bands, and is currently an adviser on terrorism and extremism to certain departments and think tanks. His day job is transport manager at a specialist logistics firm.
Acknowledgements
Once again I am indebted to; Tom Cain for further advice and encouragement; Sabba Tariq for the Urdu; Noor Khan for the Pashto; Gavin Murrell for the technical advice; Misbah for the recipes; my ‘constant readers’ circle’; and the real-life Black-Eyed Girls for proofreading and correcting elementary errors. Any inaccuracies are purely authors’ own or artistic license. All the characters, companies, or groups in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons or companies, or groups, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Excerpt from “Yes My Darling Daughter”
Words and music by Jack Lawrence 1941
Excerpt from “Agualera do Brasil”
Words and music by Ary Barroso 1939
If you enjoyed reading
Hard
Kill
by Charlie Flowers you may be interested in
Friends
and
Enemies
by Humphrey Hawksley, also published by Endeavour Press.
Extract from Friends and Enemies by Humphrey Hawksley
1
As dusk takes grip, the temperature drops and Jennifer breathes deeply to slow her heart rate. She’s feeling the cold and there’s a trembling deep in the base of her spine.
“Why were you there?” The man across the table is clean-shaven and could be 25, could be 40. He’s standing, his hands on the back of a chair.
“There was a bomb,” she answers. “People were hurt.”
In situations like this, moods can swing in seconds, which is why she keeps her answers short and her expression calm.
“What did you see?”
“A mosque, its wall collapsed.”
He’s introduced himself as Abdul, which in Arabic means servant, so she reads nothing into it. He wears jeans, plastic sandals, a red T-shirt and a denim jacket. He carries a pistol in a shoulder holster.
Wars are won with money, weapons and territory. But those who can inflict the most fear win the fights. That is why they call it terror.
“What else did you see?” he asks.
“Dead people. Injured people.”
“Who did you talk to?”
“The people I treated.”
“You are lying.”
“No.”
Outside the room, a lone voice from a minaret starts up. The evening call to prayer surges back and forth like the sea, trailing with it belief, history, culture and something unforgiving. Her paramedic, Joe Dexter, 25, younger than her, across the table, only arrived that morning, rested up in Jordan overnight and came eager to work.
Two hours later they were kidnapped.
All news from this country is bad which is why Jennifer wants to be here. The job of a trauma surgeon is to save people from absolute horror, and she hopes that amid the heat and the flies, the lying and the guns, the thieving politicians and murderous clerics, there is humanity of sorts. In cruel and painful places, outsiders talk about how wonderful the people are. It is true, but they are also human, like her captor. They cause suffering just like anyone else.
“Who else did you speak to?” Abdul persists.
“Helpers. Doctors.” Jennifer tries to keep her face blank.
Show no fear.
No arrogance.
No weakness.