Ultimatum, page 26
It sounded like a challenge, which was probably exactly what Angela intended. She was playing him, willing him to use every last resource to get himself up close to the target before it was too late. Luke felt his pulse quicken and looked at his watch. Chaplin had been missing for barely twenty-four hours. Things were moving very fast.
‘Angela, listen. I have something from my end. I’ve got a second source on Zamani. It’s Elixir. Her mother says he’s involved. He’s right at the heart of this. And I think I can get us his private mobile number.’
‘You can?’ She sounded suddenly upbeat. ‘Well, this is what half of Cheltenham’s been working on. Go for it.’
There was a sudden clatter from the room next door and the sound of voices. Farz and Mort had returned.
‘I’ve got to go,’ Luke said, ‘but I’m going to need something in exchange.’ He didn’t wait for her to ask what it was, just went straight in. ‘I need UK asylum for Elixir and her family. She’s with me now, in the next-door room. Her family are leaving him and Iran. Come on, Angela, this is an open goal.’ He waited for the pause on the line to elapse.
Then her voice came back. ‘Luke, you do know it’s not that simple, don’t you? Home Office Immigration would have to get involved and—’
‘Fuck the Home Office,’ he cut in angrily. He wasn’t in the mood for this. ‘It is that simple, Angela, and you know it. Just make the call. We need that number, right? Well, she’s got it. So let’s make a trade and do the right thing by her.’ This time the delay on the line was longer than usual.
‘Angela? Are you still there?’
‘I am. Okay, just get us that number as quick as you can and then we’ll talk about it, all right? Stay safe, Luke.’ Angela hung up.
There was a gentle knock on the bedroom door and Tannaz let herself in. She set down a steaming cup of rose-petal tea on the table next to him. As she did so she caressed the back of his neck with her other hand and he felt a frisson. You’re not letting yourself get involved with this girl, are you? Yes. He was. And Luke had yet to work out what the hell he was going to do about it.
Chapter 70
Bandar Abbas, Iran
LUKE TOOK THE piece of paper from her as casually as he could, but his heart was pounding. It was just a dozen digits scribbled on a torn-off scrap of notepaper, one man’s mobile-phone number, the private contact details for a father, a husband, a family man in the Islamic Republic of Iran. And yet this, he knew, was intelligence gold dust. Could it save the life of Britain’s Foreign Secretary? Christ, it might even help stop a war that seemed poised to consume both sides of the Gulf. God alone knew, but big stakes were at play here. He just couldn’t reveal any of this to Tannaz. Not yet.
‘Well?’ she said, raising one perfectly sculpted eyebrow as she regarded him.
He smiled, noticing that her face was still slightly flushed. ‘Thank you.’
‘Bisho’ur!’ She slapped him on the knee. ‘Idiot! I’m not asking you to thank me. I want you to tell me what they said about giving asylum. This is my family we’re talking here, Brendan! My family and my life.’
‘Right. Yes, sorry.’ Luke had gone over this conversation in his head. He could, of course, be totally honest and tell her it was highly unlikely that London would agree to asylum. Or he could spin it out, ask her for more information about her father. But what could she tell him that they didn’t already know? Luke made an executive decision. He would tell her exactly what worked for him, nothing more.
‘It’s looking good,’ he said. ‘But you have to realize they’ve got a lot on their hands right now, with the kidnapping.’ He was expecting her to protest.
Instead she nodded thoughtfully. ‘I want to help,’ Tannaz said.
‘You already have. Let me get this number over to Citizens Concern in London,’ Luke said, as he started to text it to Angela at Vauxhall Cross.
‘No,’ Tannaz replied, putting her hand back on his knee. ‘I want to help you. You’re helping me and my family so I must help you in return. That’s how we do things here in Iran.’
Luke stopped in mid-text, put down the phone and waved his hand around the room. ‘Tannaz, look at where we are,’ he said, ‘I’m somewhere safe and off the streets, and that’s thanks to you. So, trust me, I really appreciate this.’
‘I know you do. But you can’t stay here. This is too dangerous for them.’ She gestured towards the living room. ‘For Farz and for Mort. Where do you go now?’
Her directness was refreshing but he didn’t know the answer to that question. He needed to get Zamani’s number punched into his phone and over to Vauxhall Cross so they could triangulate his location, then give Luke the coordinates. He just didn’t expect what came next.
‘I invite you,’ Tannaz said.
‘You invite me?’
‘Yes. I invite you to come with me. I’m going to look for him. For my father.’
There was a sudden burst of laughter from next door.
‘Hold on – your father? You know where he is?’
‘No. But when I find him I’m going to tell him what I think of these stupid games he’s playing and tell him to stop. I know he will listen to me.’
Luke held her hands while he silently assessed this new development. Use Elixir to get close to her father. Those had been his orders all along. The parameters had changed but her suggestion still fitted with his original mission. Tannaz could get him close enough to guide in the hostage-rescue team, but not so close that he was caught. ‘How do you plan to find him?’ he asked.
‘Easy.’ She pulled away and reached for her phone. ‘I’m going to call him on that number I just gave you.’
Chapter 71
Namakdan Salt Caves, Qeshm Island
GEOFFREY CHAPLIN WAS lying on his side, eyes closed, resting on the thin damp mattress, when the visitor appeared outside his cage. To keep his spirits up, he had been playing out a rescue scenario in his head. He was remembering the training exercise he’d had to undergo in Hereford soon after his appointment as Foreign Secretary.
‘We’ve all had to do it,’ the PM had told him cheerfully, ‘even the Cambridges have been through it.’ They had whisked him off down the M4, ministerial briefs on his lap, as they drove westwards until they reached Stirling Lines, home of the SAS and the legendary Killing House. It had looked deceptively ordinary, Chaplin recalled, a two-storey grey building with four rooms on each floor. But the briefing had made clear what this was about: rubber-coated walls to absorb the bullets that would be fired perilously close to him, movable partitions and CCTV cameras to record every move, every second of his discomfort.
Chaplin had once been a cadet in his university Officers’ Training Corps but that was the sum total of his military experience. Nothing, absolutely nothing, had prepared him for the blind terror he had experienced as big men in gas-masks and anonymous black uniforms had blasted their way into the room where he’d sat, rigid with fear, on a wooden chair. There had been a split-second pause, then the man closest to him had fired two rounds into the dummy propped next to him. Chaplin was sure he had felt the impact as the bullets slammed into the fibreglass effigy of a terrorist hostage-taker. The Killing House had a deadly purpose: to teach VIPs what would happen if they were ever taken hostage, and to hone the skills of the men coming after their kidnappers. Chaplin was glad he’d been through it. Now he thought, Just hurry up and come and get me. And make sure you put a bullet through the chest of every one of these people, whoever they are.
But his reverie had been cut short, and now he looked at the man standing outside the cage. He didn’t cut a particularly impressive figure. He was dressed scruffily in a pair of old trainers, baggy grey trousers, a beige jacket and a black baseball cap pulled down over his eyes. Yet the people around him were behaving deferentially towards him. He must be someone of authority. It was hard to tell in this country, where everyone he’d met seemed to have several days’ stubble and no one wore a tie. Well, if this was a senior figure, he was jolly well going to demand his release, perhaps even suggest some sort of bargain. Chaplin was about to speak but the man got in first.
‘Welcome … Mr Foreign Secretary,’ he began. So they knew who they were holding. Chaplin wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. ‘My name is Karim Zamani and this …’ the man continued, in hesitant English, ‘… is your new home.’
Chaplin’s indignation rose. This was nothing like any home he’d ever experienced. It was his turn to speak. ‘This is not my home and I don’t know who you are.’ His voice cracked. It must be the damp and the cold down here. He coughed and continued: ‘But whatever it is you want I’m certain we can work something out. I demand to see a representative of the International Red Cross.’
‘Che goft?’ said the man, turning to someone next to him. ‘What did he say?’
Zamani laughed when he heard the translation, which Chaplin found both insulting and troubling. Now the man was speaking again. ‘We have doctor for you,’ he was saying.
‘I don’t need a damn doctor!’ Chaplin retorted. ‘I need you to release me. Immediately.’
But the man didn’t seem to be listening. Chaplin watched warily from his mattress as a guard produced a key from his belt and undid the padlock on his cage. Was the man coming in? Was he being released? No. The man stepped aside and another individual appeared, someone he hadn’t seen before.
‘This man is doctor,’ Zamani said. He indicated an elderly man with a white moustache, round glasses and baggy brown trousers. He didn’t look like any doctor Chaplin had ever seen but nothing surprised him in this country. And what was that he was carrying in his right hand? It looked like a freezer bag, the sort of thing he and Gillian used to take on picnics in the summer to keep the drinks cool when the children were growing up. Except this one was white and had a red cross stencilled on the side. Geoffrey Chaplin gave an involuntary shiver. He was beginning to feel uneasy. Something wasn’t right about this.
He pushed himself upright as the elderly man squeezed into the cage. He was accompanied by two guards, one of whom was carrying a flimsy metal chair. The other lunged for Chaplin, grabbed his arms and hauled him onto the seat.
‘Christ!’ the British politician protested. ‘I can do this myself, you know. You don’t have to manhandle me like that.’ But he could see they weren’t listening. The ‘doctor’ stood meekly by and one of the guards produced a length of nylon rope. Alarmed, Chaplin tried to stand but was roughly pushed down. His arms pinned to his sides, he felt the rope being expertly tied around his upper torso, then his legs. This was too much.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ he shouted, but no one paid any attention. He was now completely immobilized. As the rope cut into his arms and legs, he decided it was best to reason with his captors. ‘You don’t need to do this!’ he told them, desperation creeping into his voice as the fear took over. ‘I’m not going to run away from here, am I?’ Zamani, in the beige jacket, was standing impassively outside the cage, watching. There was something about his manner that spoke of ruthlessness, and his eyes were cold. Chaplin’s heart was pounding now. Something very bad was about to happen, he could tell.
What happened next was very sudden. His head was pulled back and he was about to cry out in protest but a strip of grimy cloth was tied tightly around his mouth. He could feel the knot at the base of his skull. Chaplin watched, wide-eyed, as the doctor approached and knelt at his feet. He was fiddling with the white box he had brought with him, then he glanced nervously over his shoulder at Zamani. It was almost as if he were seeking his approval. Straightening, his face just inches from Chaplin’s, he stared intently at a small glass phial that he now held up to the feeble light from the nearby hurricane lamp. He was checking its contents. In his other hand he held a hypodermic syringe. He inserted the needle into the phial, drawing out the colourless fluid. Chaplin tensed. They were going to inject him. But with what? A truth drug? He watched as the elderly doctor flicked the syringe and compressed the plunger slightly. A small spurt of liquid landed on his hand, which he wiped on his shirt. Chaplin looked at the old man’s face. By God, he thought, I hope he knows what he’s doing.
It was as if the doctor had read his mind because he made a soothing sound and patted Chaplin’s left arm as though to reassure him. Then he stopped, closed his eyes and uttered what sounded like a prayer. From the periphery of his vision, Chaplin could see the two guards smirking and then, without any warning, came the stinging pain of a needle going in. Chaplin grunted from behind his gag, tasting a foul combination of salt and oil, as he watched in horror. The doctor was emptying the contents of the syringe into his hand. Beyond, he could just make out the man in the beige jacket, his expression unreadable.
The doctor withdrew the needle, and replaced it in his white box. Chaplin wiggled his fingers. He didn’t feel any different, although his hand was a little numb. Again, the doctor’s face loomed up to his. He could see the man’s eyes peering at him through his round spectacles as if he were a specimen. What was he doing, for goodness’ sake? Checking he was still alive? The doctor turned to the two guards behind him and nodded. Stepping closer, one produced a small black sack. It was a hood, Chaplin realized, as it was forced over his head and his world went dark. This wasn’t what he’d expected and the fear was back. Chaplin was bound, gagged and sightless beneath his hood. And his left hand felt strange, very strange, as though it had been anaesthetized, but only partially. Christ, he thought, that’s just what they’ve done: they’ve tried to give me some sort of anaesthetic. But why in the hand, of all places? And then a searing red-hot pain lanced through him as he felt something slicing into his finger.
Chaplin’s scream, muffled by the gag, came out as a stifled groan. The cutting stopped. The pain eased momentarily, leaving Chaplin gasping. Suddenly he felt a pressure on his finger. It was as if it were on fire. His body convulsed as shards of agony tore through it. He thought his brain might be about to explode. Between the pain and the confusion, he realized what the men had done. They had just cut off his finger.
And then Geoffrey Chaplin, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, blacked out.
Chapter 72
Bandar Abbas, Iran
‘WAIT!’ LUKE’S ARM shot out and he grabbed Tannaz’s wrist. She gasped, dropping her phone, and cried out.
‘Aya divaneh hasti? Are you crazy? What are you doing?’
He let go immediately, embarrassed at the force of his reaction. ‘I’m sorry, Tannaz, but you were about to call your father.’
‘And?’ Her eyes blazed. ‘He’s my father and you don’t get to tell me who I can call!’
‘Of course not,’ Luke said soothingly. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. But just stop and think for a moment. If you call him now he’s not going to let you near him, is he? In fact, he’ll probably send someone here to take you back to Tehran. D’you want that?’ Her shoulders relaxed. He hoped she saw the logic in his argument. ‘Better we find him by another way,’ he added. ‘Then you can confront him face to face.’
‘How d’you mean “by another way”?’
Luke shrugged. ‘I’ll talk to Citizens Concern in London. They’ve got some great tech people on their team.’
Tannaz’s eyes narrowed, just as they had when she’d confronted him in that side-street in Tehran. He wondered how long he could keep up this flimsy cover story. She wasn’t stupid – in fact, she seemed to be ahead of him half the time.
‘Just give me a few minutes,’ he told her, ‘and then I’ll come and join you and the others.’ Luke watched her leave. From next door came the smell of cooking and he felt his stomach contract in response. He suddenly realized how little he had eaten since leaving Tehran. But that had to wait. He looked at the scrap of paper with Zamani’s number and smiled. This was it. He keyed it into his phone and pressed ‘send’. He waited. It took under a minute for a response to come through. Received, Stand by.
Another wait, longer this time, more laughter from the kitchen and the clatter of plates. It must have been the familiar sound of domesticity that made him think of Elise. To say he’d treated her badly was an understatement. He knew he should call her now while he had the chance. Yes, that was the right thing to do. But to tell her what? Anything less than ‘I’m coming straight home’ was bound to end in an argument and he didn’t need that right now.
His phone buzzed.
‘Bloody excellent work,’ said a low voice. It was Trish Fryer, Mission Controller, Middle East, at Vauxhall Cross. ‘This was exactly the missing piece we needed,’ she said.
‘Good to hear,’ Luke replied, keeping his voice down. ‘Let’s see this thing through. D’you have his coordinates for me?’
‘They’ll be coming through on your phone in a minute. You’ll need the Gama function to access the map. Go into Settings and make sure it’s enabled. Look … um …’ Trish stopped in mid-flow, suddenly sounding more hesitant. ‘I’m going to level with you, Luke. This isn’t perfect science. It looks like Zamani’s on the move. We’ve only got two transmissions from that number you got for us. One was made from Bandar Abbas and the other from an island called Qeshm. We’re sending you that one because it’s the most recent.’
‘How recent?’
‘An hour ago.’
‘That’s good enough for me. Keep me posted.’ Luke ended the call and looked around the room. He had nothing to take with him except his phone and his passport. Everything else he had brought with him to Iran – the washbag, razors, his change of underwear – would all have been lifted from his hotel room by now. He assumed they’d have been tagged and bagged and were now most likely sitting in some Intelligence Ministry evidence box in Tehran, awaiting his trial if they ever managed to catch him. He grunted to himself. They were welcome to them.
