Chapter 26
Michael Truro was sleep deprived and running on caffeine when there was a knock at his office door.
"What?" He groaned, a hand half covering his face from where he had been trying to catch a few minutes sleep. Resolved that he wasn't going to be sleeping anytime soon Truro let his hand slide down and sat up straight in his chair as the door opened a young hipster-looking tech analyst, wearing jeans, blue shirt and a tie, stepped in looking worried. His dreadlocked hair was tied back in a ponytail.
"A, um-" The boy coughed, "A situation has occurred, sir."
Truro rubbed the tiredness out of his eyes as he thought about his lovely double bed at home waiting for him, alas empty, but still waiting for him. His thoughts turned to Samantha and how she had looked sprawled across the bare sheets in her strappy black lingerie.
"-Sir?"
"Huh?" Truro snapped his head up and stared at the young boy in front of him who could be no more than twenty five and yet he could probably hack the entire british mainframe if he so decided to. He was glad the intelligence service got him on their side first.
"The situation, yes," Truro coughed, trying to cover his earlier lapse. There was no way Samantha would ever find herself in his bed again, not after what he had done, "What is it? Have the sweep teams found anything?"
"Not yet no Sir but they're almost halfway through their priority searches. No, the situation is with General Ridgeway and his team, sir."
Truro became instantly alert as if he had just downed half a dozen espresso shots, "Show me."
The hipster tech led the way out of his office, around a small corridor and into the control room where the large screen sat to his left. Looking out over the rows of computers that spanned outwards from the screen like a university auditorium, Truro's eyes became glued to the screen as he saw footage from the drone feeding live.
"We sent the drone back over to check on the team's progress and, well-" The techie stopped as Truro walked passed him and stared at the screen. The drone was circling high above the compound offering them a wide view of the immediate area which was currently occupied with nearly a dozen trucks that surrounded the building.
"Shit." Truro snapped under his breath as he reached the large floor space in front of the screen and looked up at the rotating image as the drone circled.
"That's mild," Strong's voice travelled across to him from the corner. Truro looked over and saw him slowly getting up from sitting on the edge of the table, "My men are in there and they must be running low on ammunition by now."
"Well, you shouldn't have sent them," Truro snapped, he was not going to have the blame pushed onto his shoulders, "I told them to come back- I even told you to tell them to come back but you decided not to. This is not my fault."
"My team could have done this quietly but you had to send in Ridgeway with his ridiculous private toy soldiers and-"
"-do I seriously need to remind you that it was your hot shot G.I Jane that set off a bomb in the first place!?" Truro shouted as he arched his eyebrows at Strong. He waited for a response but Strong suddenly seemed very tight lipped so he turned back to the screen and watched as it turned to thermal imaging and picked out the many red dots littered about the screen. How the hell was he going to get them out of there? Truro thought as he ran a hand through his hair, half of those red dots are children and hopefully one is the Prime Minister's niece.
Placing his hands on his hips Truro had learnt when it was time to ask for help so he used the resources at his disposal and turned back to Strong, "How do you think we should proceed?" He may not have liked Strong's recent handling of the situation but he understood it and he knew that Strong had years of good tactical knowledge under his belt.
Strong seemed startled at first that Truro would ask for his help but he masked his surprise and parted his lips to speak when the shrill ring of a telephone broke through the silence that had descended over the control room. Turning in the direction that it came from Truro looked towards a desk at the far end where a blonde-haired woman answered the phone. Truro watched her perfectly arched eyebrows rise up a little as she stuttered nervously into the phone, "Y-Yes sir. Right away, sir,"
Pressing a button on the telephone but lowering the receiver she stood up and hurried across to Truro, the heels on her shoes forcing her to take small steps rather than the long, quick strides he was hoping for.
"Who is it?"
"The prime minister, sir," She swallowed.
Truro closed his eyes briefly as he remembered that he was still linked into the live feed from the drone. He was seeing exactly what they were seeing and probably wondering why no one had phoned to tell him. "Thank you," He muttered as he turned to the phone nearest to him which was located on a operative's desk in front of him.
"He's on line three, sir," The blonde girl with heels said before she turned and hurried back to her own desk.
"Prime Minister," Truro spoke immediately into the phone hoping to gain the upper hand, "May I just say-"
Strong watched Truro's expression falter as the prime minister obviously interrupted him and a moment later Strong thought he could hear the PM's voice shouting down the line. Apart from the soft buzzing from the machines nothing else in the room made a noise. Strong looked up at the screen as the thermal imaging was switched back to real time and the camera zoomed in on the first piece of movement, scouring for possible intelligence to feed back to them, which was a car door opening.
"Yes, sir, I am aware but-" Truro said before he was interrupted again but Strong kept watching the screen, his palms beginning to sweat as he waited for someone to emerge from the truck.
"Sir, it may be our only chance," Truro continued to speak, his being the only voice in the room at the moment as everyone's attention was drawn to the screen, "I cannot imagine us getting another chance to-"
Strong did not know what Truro was asking the PM permission for cause at that moment it suddenly felt as if he had been kicked in the gut. A turban-wearing figure had just stepped out from the car before dragging a small girl along with him but it wasn't the presence of the girl that made him feel like this although it did upset him. No, it was a moment later when the figure's attention must have been drawn to something in the sky and they tilted their heads back far enough for the drone to capture a facial image. The picture popped up in the top left hand side of the screen as the program flitted through thousands of photos looking for a match. Strong could see the photos being analysed and discarded beneath the picture of the figure in the screen but Strong did not need a program to tell him who this man was. This wasn't the first time he had seen this man's face but he had hoped it had been the last.
As predicted the program found a ninety-six percent match and it bleeped up in the middle of the screen in a bright red border showing the database image for Muhammad Abbas, a radical known terrorist. Truro turned around as he heard the alert and his eyebrows rose dramatically. Abbas had not been heard from in years, everyone had assumed he'd been killed in an air strike, but he was clearly alive and plotting a major terrorist attack. Truro's shock lasted a moment before it turned to determination.
"Sir," He spoke down the line when the PM fell silent as he saw the same as they did, "If Muhammad Abbas organised this terrorist threat then it is worse than we feared. He's methodical and has had years of people thinking he was dead to cover his tracks. He could have planned numerous attacks and we wouldn't know. Sir, I really must illiterate that this may be our only chance to positively remove him."
Strong heard Truro's words and turned to look at him slowly, his brow furrowing in the middle as he realised what Truro was asking for. "No," Strong shook his head.
Truro looked away at the floor as he continued to speak down the phone in a hushed tone of voice, "He was listed in our top five most wanted terrorists and we stopped looking for him because we thought he was dead, but we were wrong. Right now we have the chance to correct our mistake, remove him and dozens of his associates and save lives."
"Save lives?" Strong burst out, "You'll be killing dozens of innocents in the process! There are twenty six children down there- twenty six!" Strong shouted, "Not to mention men and women that risked their lives for this country, and this is how you want to repay them!?"
Truro shot Strong a look from the corner of his eye but he said nothing as Strong waited in what felt like limbo when he suddenly turned to him.
"He wants to speak to you," Truro thrust the phone into his chest before crossing his arms.
Strong scrambled to grab the phone and press it to his ear, "Sir, I must-"
"-I understand that you are against an air strike and truthfully so am I. My niece is down there and despite all the field tests showing me how accurate an air strike can be I do not wish to risk her life unnecessarily, for my sister's sake. So can you offer me an alternative?" The prime minster bit straight into the problem leaving Strong off-balance for a moment, "An alternative which will see this terrorist killed and the children protected, because I cannot."
"Yes sir I can," Strong said confidentially.
"I am all ears," the PM said after a moment when Strong did not elaborate.
"Sir, my best team is down there along with Ridgeway's special operatives. They can get this done sir without all the bloodshed."
"As I understand it they're running low on ammunition and are currently trapped in the same compound I am looking at on my screen, is that correct?"
"Yes sir, but-"
"-Also that your team's presence there is unsanctioned?"
"Yes sir," Strong admitted.
"And that you sent them?" the PM's voice was monotone and hard to decipher.
"Yes sir," Strong felt like a kid in primary school being chided by the teacher, "But-"
"-In which case I want to offer you my thanks."
"Sir?" Strong frowned.
"If you hadn't taken initiative then we might not have ever known about this terrorist attack in time to prevent it. For that I'm giving you one hour to sort this mess out, if not then the only alternative I can see is sending in an air strike. One hour, Commander." And the line went dead.
* * *
"Safia," Jules gasped as all the air left her body. Her eyes were glued to the young girl as she saw her for the first time in over two years and it felt as if her heart was breaking. She had grown so much since Julia had seen her last. Her hair was still the same dark brown almost black colour and it fell over her shoulders in scraggly waves but there was fragility to her. Jules saw how thin her arms looked and how prominent her bones looked beneath her skin. Jules did not know if she had seen her when, in her peripheral vision, she saw the rifles of Ridgeway's team still raised.
"Lower your fucking weapons," Jules snapped at them in blind anger not caring how they turned and stared at her, "Nobody is to shoot anybody." Getting to her feet she turned and nearly ran all the way to the door that separated her and Marc. Banging on the door with her first, she shouted his name whilst looking to her right through the massive gap at Safia, fearing that she would disappear again.
"Marc!" Julia shouted when he didn't respond.
"Five more minutes!" Marc shouted in reply, not knowing what was happening outside.
"No, now!" Julia shouted, "She's here, Marc! Safia is here!"
A few moments later she heard something rattling behind the door as Marc fought to open it. Julia jumped back quickly as the metal door swung outwards towards her and Marc appeared in the doorway, his eyes wide and looking around the room, "Where? Where is she?"
Jules's eyes were drawn to Marc's bloody knuckles as he gripped the door.
"She's out there with his friends," She nodded inside the room where she presumed the terrorist was but she couldn't see past Marc.
Following her instructions Marc stepped out of the doorway and headed towards the gap in the wall and Jules turned to follow him when she paused and looked into the room. In the middle of the room strapped to a chair with black power cords around his chest and ankles the terrorist looked unconscious, blood stained saliva dripping from his mouth. The wound at his leg appeared to have reopened and a small pool of red liquid was coagulating by his feet.
"Get anything from your prisoner?" Ridgway arched an eyebrow, his voice dripping with anger as his gaze too was drawn to Marc's grazed knuckles.
Marc ignored him, "Where is Safia?" He asked Carlos and Twitch.
"Hey Marc," Carlos and Twitch bolted upright, raising their hands to stop him going any further and seeing what they had saw, "How about we go over there before-"
Jules frowned at Carlos and Twitch as she walked forward, leaving the terrorist behind her, "What is wrong with you two?"
The pair looked at each other wearily, unsure of how to tell their closest friends what they knew.
When neither of them were forthcoming with the information Marc reached out, grabbed their shoulders and pushed them aside impatiently.
"No, wait-" Twitch tried to warn him but it was too late as he gazed outside. The first thing he noticed was the herd of vehicles surrounding them of which his gaze was drawn to the front vehicle where a man stood with a young girl in front of him, his hand resting paternally on her shoulder.
A wave of anger filled his body as Marc curled his into a fist by his side when he saw that that girl was Safia with her coffee coloured skin and ebony hair. He wanted to run out there and pick her up into his arms and carry her away to safety but he knew he couldn't. The moment he moved they would shoot him and then her and then everyone else. Safia was looking towards them but he did not see any recognition on her face, perhaps she could not see them clearly.
Looking up at the man who was holding her in place Marc expected to feel a torrent of fury but instead he froze. Every muscle in his body relaxed and his fingers uncurled by his side as he stumbled back a step, hitting a rock as he did so which scattered loudly along the concrete ground like a short burst of gunfire. Gasping, Marc spun around and found himself in a brick room full of fire as the smoke clung to his lungs suffocating him. He could feel the heat against his skin as the fire fought to break through the door, licks of flames creeping in under the door, boiling the beads of sweat that clung to him as he wrestled with the bindings at his wrists, trying to break free.
Exclaiming in pain and fear, Marc looked around at the small room he had been kept in looking for a way out-
"-Marc!" A voice screamed in his ear and he was jolted back, his heart racing to catch up as he looked around him wildly and found that there was no fire and the heat was considerably less. Gazing down at his wrists he saw that they were not bound and someone else was holding his hands before they dropped them suddenly.
"What the hell just happened?" Jules exclaimed, "Where did you go?"
"Jules," Carlos walked over, "Perhaps we ought to tell you something."
"Tell me what?" Jules asked louder as she looked between the three of them in confusion. Marc was still staring at his wrists as if he was looking for something whilst Carlo and Twitch were looking amongst themselves, waiting for the other one to start.
Julia sighed, "Will someone please just tell me what the f-"
"The man outside with Safia-" Carlos began.
"-Pfft, if you can even call him that," Twitch interjected with a shake of his head. Carlos turned and glared at him before continuing.
"The man outside with Safia is Muhammad Abbas-"
"-Muhammad Abbas!?" Cromwell exclaimed from across the room causing the three of them to look over in frustration that they had interrupted the story. Marc continued to stare at his hands in a daze, worrying Jules further. "Oh shit, I thought he was dead!"
"Evidently not," Twitch rolled his eyes.
"What about him?" Jules asked Carlos, getting back on topic, "He's not the first terrorist we've ever dealt with. What is so special about him apart from the fact that he currently has Safia and three other children and is holding us captive?" She shrugged.
"Shortly after we joined Marc and his squad," Carlos explained, "Abbas led an assault against our base and-"
"-And," Marc suddenly spoke, his voice broken but determined, as he looked up at her, "He took me hostage. Muhammad Abbas nearly killed me."