Armageddon Games

Quentin Black

Copyright © 2025 Quentin Black All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written permission of the publisher.

Cover design by: Golden Rivet

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CONTENTS

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

AUTHOR’S NOTES

RYDER FAMILY TREE

LIMITED CAST LIST

PROLOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

AUTHOR’S REQUEST

GLOSSARY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

AUTHOR’S NOTE

IN THE CONNOR REED SERIES

DEDICATION

To Chris Searle

A wonderful man who I miss both professionally and personally.

AUTHOR’S NOTES

Definitions of specific terms and phrases are italicised and emboldened and can be found in the glossary.

Though some of the occurrences are based on real events, it’s a fiction novel… hence the artistic licence with regards to the details and timeline.

RYDER FAMILY TREE

LIMITED CAST LIST

Cast List is limited to characters making their first appearance and who feature prominently.

Ordered by surname

Alkhalid – roughly translated and Romanised from Arabic to ‘The Immortal’.

Alastiratijiu – roughly translated and Romanised from Arabic to ‘The Strategist’, said to be a mysterious coordinator of attacks against Israel and the West.

Khalil Ali – one of the leaders of a new militant group known as The Lion’s Den, based in the West Bank city of Nablus.

Jamal al-Sheikh – Syrian ISIS fighter and a close friend of Moshen Khalimov.

Naftali Avidan – Director of Mossad; Israel’s National Intelligence Agency.

Yossi Bernea – Head of the Arab department of Shin Bet.

Petr Fradkov – Deputy head of Russia’s Middle Eastern Department of Political Intelligence –Directorate PR.

Ibrahim – ‘Ibra’ – Haddad – a Caesarea asset.

Moshen Khalimov – a deep-cover officer of Quds Force, one of the branches of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps specialising in unconventional warfare and military intelligence.

Anna Kostenko – Revolutionary poet.

Nikita Lvov – Russian armoured troop captain and Yuri Kozlov’s asset.

Viktoria Merleni – an associate currently employed by Leonid Honchar, a boss within the Odessa Mafia.

Nikolai – Russian Black Sea smuggler.

Benyamine ‘Beni’ Mizrahi – Israeli owner of ‘Meteorite Motorcycles’.

David Nazzal – Director of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service.

Karim Shamil – a team leader within Khalimov’s unit with the call sign Komodo.

Raz Sharir – Chief of Caesarea, the rough equivalent of the CIA’s Special Activities Division, which deals with covert operations.

Rephidim – a codename for an unofficial Mossad agent.

Avi Teper – a suspended Shin Bet team leader within The Israel and Foreigners Department.

Daniel Weisz – a money launderer for the Ryder family.

Eitan Yadlin – Head of Aman, Israeli Military Intelligence.

Ann Zurer – Head of Tevel, a branch of Mossad tasked with fostering relations with other foreign intelligence agencies.

PROLOGUE

Only a warrior chooses pacifism. Others are condemned to it.

― Eduardo Garcia

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Holly Mew, for your constant support.

Golden-Rivet, for the cover design and promotional video.

Alun Denbigh-White for your pre-proofing and plot critiques.

Daniel ‘Farno’ Holmes, for your editorial input.

Eddie Bell of Trefoil Energy, for slinging me a bit of a lifeline.

1

Eighteen months ago

Bruce McQuillan entered the room to the faint smell of tobacco despite the absence of a smoking apparatus.

The long, angular table reflected swirls of African blackwood-like clouds whorled by von Kármán vortices.

The Star of David shone from its centre.

A glass cabinet housing books and drinks ran along the left edge.

Bruce kept the surprise off his face on being confronted with the presence of a man he had not expected.

To his left stood Ann Zurer, clasping her hands and smiling like a hotel maître d’.

Zurer, a handful of years younger than his fifty-six, headed Tevel, the Mossad branch tasked with fostering relations with foreign intelligence.

A mulberry ribbon held back the noirette’s hair, accentuating eyes Bruce thought hinted oriental.

She stepped towards him and extended her hand, which he shook.

Bruce noticed Zurer did not cover his hand with her free one—a power play of body language he had seen her doing to other SIS officers at the Vauxhall Cross meeting months back.

“I am glad to see you again. Thank you for coming to Tel Aviv,” she said.

“Thank you for the welcome. It isn’t often a British intelligence officer is treated to the luxury of a top-floor room at Sheraton Grand. James Bond was independently wealthy, I am afraid.”

“I cannot take the credit for that,” said Ann, stepping back and spreading her fingers across the collar of her seventies-style blue suit. “The boss here insisted.”

She gestured to the man most of the world’s media would label the most dangerous in Israel—Naftali Avidan, the head of Mossad.

The tall sixty-two-year-old stood barely an inch off Bruce, with a full head of grey and white spikes tipping him over.

A natural ectomorph, Avidan cut a more slender figure than the broader McQuillan.

His hand felt softer than Bruce had expected, and his pallor had an unexpected greyish hue.

His voice, noticeably lower than his ‘television’ manner, said, “I am sure money is not scarce in your life, Mister McQuillan. After all, the Tanakh says that ‘In all work, there is profit—’”

Bruce completed the quote for him, “‘—but mere talk produces only poverty.’”

Avidan’s dark blue suit with a cream shirt appeared unfinished without the lighter blue tie worn in public.

“Precisely,” said Avidan, still grasping his hand. “We know you have been a man of action long before a man of words.”

He released Bruce’s hand, and the Scotsman understood the underlying duality of the statement—I am complimenting you but also letting you know that I know more about you than you wish.

Avidan swept his hand to present the third member of the trio—the man Bruce considered the most dangerous man in Israel and perhaps the Middle East.

The Mossad chief said, “This is Raz Sharir. He is the head of one of our foreign infiltration units.”

The former SAS soldier did not wish to reveal that Avidan’s vagueness was unnecessary. McQuillan knew Sharir to be the head of Caesarea, the rough equivalent of the CIA’s Special Activities Division, which dealt with covert operations.

It also housed the Kidon, an estimated forty elite assassins, many of whom held dual nationalities and were fluent in foreign languages.

Though a couple of inches shorter than the Scotsman, Bruce reckoned Sharir’s farmer-esque frame to hold at least a stone more.

The receding and cropped grey head of hair matched the shade of his moustache, giving way to a trimmed white beard.

He wore a dark grey wool shirt over jeans, with seemingly no attempt at style.

Bruce stepped and reached over the corner of the table, as Sharir did not move.

The two men clasped calloused hands, shook twice and released.

Bruce noticed the prominent nose and black eyebrows stood as chief supports to the dark eyes.

Avidan said, “Please, let us take a seat. Can we get you anything, Mister McQuillan?”

Bruce didn’t like that his seat presented his back to the door.

The Mossad chief leant back a touch when Bruce said, “A black coffee, please,” before pressing the underside of the table.

Within moments, a gentle knock at the door preceded a young female voice. “Yes, sir?”

“A black coffee for our guest, Michaela.”

“Yes, sir,” she answered before disappearing.

The Scotsman had long ago learnt to accept offers of coffee—they came in handy as props to allow himself to consider his answers.

Avidan afforded him a tight smile and said, “Ann told me she was very impressed with some of the observations you had made during her visit. So I reached out to Miles Parker, a man I have known for many years, and he tells me you are perhaps the best he has seen within our particular area of expertise.”

Avidan referred to the chief of SIS. For the last few years, Bruce worked as an interservice liaison officer between SIS, MI5 and Scotland Yard.

However, regarding expertise, Avidan was referring to covert black operations.

The Glasgow native lamented how his profile had risen from mystery to his talents being advertised to a foreign intelligence head in just a few short years.

That said, if there was one spy agency that might have known about him prior, it may have been Mossad.

With another gentle knock, the door opened, and a white ceramic cup with blue Hebrew writing appeared on the table before him.

Neither fluent in the language in its spoken nor written form, Bruce recognised the text as Mossad’s former motto of ‘By way of deception, you shall engage in war’—a phrase from Proverbs 24:6.

“Thank you,” Bruce said to the young woman, whose cacao skin contrasted with her darker curly hair.

She left him with a curt nod.

“Can I call you Bruce?” asked Avidan.

“Yes.”

“So, Bruce, why do you think we have engaged you for… consultancy?”

Bruce took a sip of coffee and replied, “Israel and Saudi Arabia are on the precipice of a historic agreement with huge trade and security implications. Naturally, Iran does not like the thought of their main Middle Eastern antagonists completing the normalisation process. You’re anticipating an Iranian spanner to be thrown into the works through its proxies. And you’re leaving no stone unturned to prevent it.”

The trio looked at him, and with a nod, Avidan observed, “An accurate assessment.”

“What would you like to ask me, sir?”

“Please, call me Naftali,” said Mossad’s chief. “From an outsider’s perspective, what do you think the Iranians’ play might be?”

“A coordinated attack through HAMAS. Large enough to ensure the government orders a severe response from the IDF. The resultant media fallout displaying dead Gazan children might pressure the Saudis to put the brakes on.”

Parker had warned Bruce off from using the word ‘Palestinians’, as many within the Israeli intelligence services agreed with the statement made by the nation’s current minister of defence that ‘There is no such thing as Palestinians, they are Arabs.’

Avidan looked at Ann, who said, “The general feeling in the government is that their mandating the increase of work visas to Gazans has mellowed HAMAS’s stance against us. Indeed, reports indicate that the previous two sustained rocket bombardments from the strip have been the responsibility of Islamic Jihad and not HAMAS. Tapped phone conversations of the HAMAS leadership have corroborated this.”

Bruce stated, “Shin Bet phone taps, not by yourselves.”

Ann shifted. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you said ‘the government’, not ‘we’.”

Sharir’s head retracted a few millimetres at that.

Avidan said, “It is true that the maintenance of security in the West Bank and Gaza is more within the realm of our Shabak cousins.”

“You want my thoughts on Hezbollah?”

“Yes.”

“They are more organised, better trained and greater in number than their HAMAS counterparts. Their tunnel system is more intricate and extensive. But crucially, the security of their lower rung members is more disciplined—to be specific, your technological advantage is being negated by their refusal to use phones.”

Bruce heard one of the doors outside in the corridor shut.

The Mossad chief smiled. “It is good to know that Miles Parker isn’t one for hyperbole.”

Sharir curtly spoke for the first time, “Any suggestions regarding solutions?”

“I assume the common method of communication between middle and lower management involves a summons to a meeting point via a pager, where orders are given in person.”

Sharir answered without taking his gaze off Bruce, “Correct. That and portable, handheld, two-way radios.”

“Walkie-talkies.”

“Yes. Walkie-talkies.”

Bruce, only looking at Sharir, said, “Form a dummy company to provide Hezbollah with the pagers. I believe you have assets embedded in the mid to upper levels of Hezbollah’s organisational structure who might alert the logistics decision-makers to potential mass-bulk purchases.”

“To what end? The information gleaned from pager taps is insignificant in relation to the work and risk.”

Bruce lifted his case onto the desk, opened it using a complex rotary code, and handed the chief of assassins a twenty-page document.

The British black operations master said, “In there is the information you need to rig the pagers with explosives and have them detonated upon receiving a transmission of your choosing. Have the guys at the Glilot junction look at this. I am sure the information could be adapted to walkie-talkies, too.”

Bruce had used ‘the guys at the Glilot junction’ as a synonym for Unit 8200, responsible, among other things, for collecting signal intelligence, code decryption, cyber warfare, and surveillance.

Inside Unit 8200 lay a section specialising in developing surveillance tools and weapons.

And though subordinate to Aman—Israeli military intelligence—they often worked with Mossad.

Avidan said, “Enough explosive to kill?”

“In the document is an outline of how to delay the denotation after the message is received—gives them enough time to bring the pager to their face to read or else explode whilst still in their pocket. Besides, survivors of the attack will be identified as Hezbollah by the fact half their stomachs or faces are missing.”

Bruce thought he caught a glimmer of a smile on Sharir before his expression straightened, and he said, “I will take your recommendation under advisement. Is there anything we can do for you?”

The Scotsman would have thought the last statement to be bordering on disrespectful towards Avidan had it not been for Mossad chief’s complete lack of reaction.

“I don’t believe so.”

They all rose from their seats.

Avidan shook Bruce’s hand first. “We thank you for your time. I understand foreign relations is not necessarily in your job description.”

“No one wants to experience World War III in this nuclear age.”

Avidan released his hand. “Ann will see you out, Bruce.”

This time, Sharir stepped to close their distance, gripping Bruce’s hand. “An individual, organisation and nation are not rich through their fiscal wealth—but through the quality of their relationships.”

Bruce replied with a nod of acknowledgement before their clasped hands released.

2

Present Day

Miles Parker used his baritone voice to answer the knock.

“Come in.”

He stood as the heavy, hand-carved door, edged by a patterned iron frame, opened to reveal Bruce McQuillan.

“Good to see you,” said the SIS chief.

“Likewise,” answered the Scotsman, who, despite his height, still stood a few inches off the top of Parker’s razor-shorn head.

“Take a seat.”

McQuillan did so on a red leather chair opposite Parker, the two men separated by a large table matching the material and design of the door.

Above hung a painting depicting Admiral Lord Nelson’s death while surrounded by his men. Bruce asked, “What can I do for you?”

Parker had noticed a change in Bruce’s manner and appearance in recent years.

Though still fit and trim, the hawk-like features of the younger McQuillan had softened, and the grey in his hair threatened the hegemony of the black.

Parker realised Bruce, currently wearing a suit a darker blue than his own, seemed to look more comfortable in them than Parker had when transitioning from field operations.

The former SAS soldier and black operations operative seemed more relaxed—less feral in his alertness.

“It seems the Israeli Prime Minster wants an independent but highly discreet investigation carried out as to why their security apparatus apparently failed with regards to HAMAS’s attack on October seventh. Your name came up.”

“How does the Israeli prime minister know my name? I was led to believe I still work in a clandestine capacity.”

Parker would not have allowed anyone within the circus to speak to him with any edge of combativeness to their tone without rebuke.

However, this being McQuillan, he let it slide.

“He doesn’t know your name. He tasked Ann Zurer to select a potential candidate.”

“Her selection doesn’t seem neutral as Tevel belongs to Mossad.”

“Perhaps that might work in your favour. Ann could leverage you more access with that agency,” said Parker. “Though, the feeling is that the focus of your investigation should be Shin Bet and Aman.”

“Whose feeling is that? Ann’s? Avidan’s?”

Parker shook his head. “The prime minister’s. I’ve seen the signed brief. Besides, Gaza is more their remit. I’m sure if Hezbollah constituted the main thrust of the attack, Mossad would be similarly scrutinised.”

“I see.”

“Are you aware that in the last year or so, Naftali Avidan has been struggling with Hodgkin’s lymphoma?”

Bruce nodded. “He looked ill back when I saw him a year and a half ago. I wasn’t sure what it was at the time.”

Parker said, “The good news is that it looks like they might have got a handle on it—he’ll have his last bout of chemotherapy in a week or so. Perhaps it’ll be best to speak to him beforehand.”

Bruce responded, “Impressive that they managed to keep it from the media.”

“Indeed,” was all Parker could reply, as Bruce had seemingly read his mind.

For the last few years, Parker had been attempting to get Bruce McQuillan to agree to succeed him as SIS chief. Though the decision ultimately lay with the Foreign Secretary, to whom the title was accountable, Parker’s recommendation would guarantee the position.

And Parker was fully prepared to doctor McQuillan’s already heavily redacted file.

However, McQuillan had always flatly refused.

Despite taking the official position of ‘Chief Liaison Officer of the Security Services’ a few years ago, he had only just finished handing over the reins of the black operations unit known to a handful as ‘The Chameleon Project’, of which he had been head for around two decades.

Instead, they compromised, and McQuillan agreed to head the renewed and updated Section D, its remit conducting covert political actions and paramilitary operations.

The Scotsman asked, “How much access am I allowed?”

“She has stated nothing will be off-limits. However, what they say and mean are two different things.”

“Seems very un-Israeli to draft in a foreign intelligence officer for an investigation.”

“The Israeli public and the Knesset struggle to believe that raghead Gazans could have found the ingenuity and lateral organisation to pull this off.”

“Surprised that over three decades of paramilitary conflict wouldn’t harden and finesse any organisation? Push its brightest minds to the forefront? Surprised that an overreliance on technology can be exploited? Surprised that the hand of the Quds Force hasn’t been at work?”

“You’re right, Bruce. We both know your investigation wouldn’t yield much beyond that, but I believe it is a political manoeuvre to quash any internal belief in certain theories.”

“You mean that it might behove the current Israeli Government to have a death cult ruling over Gaza to make a two-state solution unpalatable?”

“Exactly.”

“How much time are they allowing?”

“Zurer anticipates it’ll take approximately six weeks for you to collate all the necessary information and write a report.”

Parker didn’t think his mental hesitation showed on his face, so he was surprised when Bruce asked, “What is it?”

“Bruce… with the situation being so volatile, you are required to have an escort. And the department in charge of bodyguarding VIPs is—”

“—The Protective Security Department.”

“Yes, quite.”

“So, the intelligence service that bears the responsibility for monitoring HAMAS activity is the one that’ll have their eyes on me at all times? Doesn’t sound in keeping with conducting a thorough and open investigation?”

Shin Bet—more commonly known as Shabak—had three operational wings: the Arab department responsible for counterterrorism within Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.

The Israel and Foreigners Department dealt with counterespionage and subversion within Israel emanating from non-Arab foreign entities.

The third, the Protective Security Department, oversaw guarding high-value persons and sites in the country.

Parker looked at Bruce with vague apology. “We can’t discount that this is a political manoeuvre. You go over, conduct some interviews, compile a report no more revealing than what a civilian might find on the internet, and return having strengthened relations over there.”

Bruce nodded before asking, “I am assuming you can make the necessary excuses for my absence in the meantime?”

“Of course,” said Parker. “A man like yourself must deal with issues outside his primary role.”

Ciara Robson conducted the security measure of driving the stone-grey Audi RS3 past the required right turn.

She continued down the single carriage road over half a kilometre to the roundabout, at which she came back on herself.

This gave Jaime Rangel, the cybersecurity, logistics coordinator and technological director for The Chameleon Project, a chance to ascertain if she had been followed by observing images from the near-invisible cameras embedded in the trees overlooking the road.

Jaime’s set-up also allowed for facial recognition, even through tinted windows—and she could give him a subtle signal to indicate if she was under duress in any way.

The short-haired blonde had already removed lilac-lensed sunglasses to expose her sea-green eyes.

After receiving the message of ‘clear’, she took the turning up the long, winding country road.

Though well gravelled, the centre strip of the road bared soil and moss patches. She knew anti-vehicle mines had been placed at intervals but could only be set off by Jaime remotely.

She opened a gap in her driver’s window that she had closed a few miles back to keep out the ‘wet laundry’ smell from the south Surrey fields. The cleaner air here mixed with the cherry scent from the car’s freshener.

Though not long past her thirtieth birthday, Ciara’s imposter syndrome regarding running The Chameleon Project had receded as time went on.

Heading such an effective black operations unit was daunting enough, especially with a field career that, though impressive, had been short.

Moreover, Bruce McQuillan, the previous chief and the man who had bestowed upon her the position, was considered by those who knew him to be the most capable urban black operations commander of the past two decades. This proved a dual-edged blade in that though she felt her feet barely touching the insides of his boots, his endorsement of her had given her the spark of confidence to accept the role.

And this spark had now morphed into a healthy flame as her experience and successes had grown.

She had found herself adept at the political game.

In the last ten days, not only had she managed to extort billionaire and Canada’s likely next prime minister for two point three million Canadian dollars every quarter, but she also arranged for seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars of it to be funnelled into whatever account Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Officer Philip Marr instructed.

This had been to foster good relations—something Bruce had implored her to be the lifeblood of their business.

Indeed, the tall, broad-shouldered, physically strong Ciara had not long returned from Paris, where she had accepted the tall, broad-shouldered, bull-necked CSIS clandestine operations officer’s offer of a dinner date.

Philip had been excellent company and good in bed, and Ciara had felt more relaxed as a result.

Jaime had summoned her for meetings a little more often than expected, given that Bruce had impressed upon her his hyper-security-conscious and reclusive nature.

The Peruvian had never hinted at any flirtation, and in the beginning, he seemed almost intimidated by her despite her massive admiration for his technical abilities.

She slowed on approaching the red stone country house with a steeply pitched thatched roof and parked on the wide circle of smooth stones.

Alighting from the Audi, she smoothed the lapel of her dark blue trouser suit jacket, wrapping around an egg-shell collared shirt.

The heavy, smooth wooden door opened before she could chime the bell.

The olive-skinned Peruvian wore a country-chequered shirt with the top three buttons loose to reveal a white T-shirt.

“Hello, Ciara,” said Jaime, somewhat stiffly.

She remembered asking Connor why he had nicknamed Jaime ‘The Latin Spock’, and the Yorkshireman’s answer had been, ‘Because he’s so intelligent and logical it’s like his brain can’t process banter.’

So, for her amusement, she replied, “Hi Jaime, how’s it hanging?”

“Ahem… it’s… I suppose—”

“How are you, Jaime?”

“I am good, thank you,” he said, seemingly relieved at the question’s rephrasing. “Bruce has been delayed—he thinks at least an hour or so.”

Ciara couldn’t remember the last time her former boss was late for anything but answered, “Can I at least wait inside?”

“Yes, yes, yes, of course,” said Jaime, hurriedly stepping inside.

She decided to stop teasing him.

He led her through a hallway that seemed a little laboratory-like with its stainless-steel panelling.

However, the kitchen proved a little more homely to her, though the polished black marble and oak blended with the chrome and glass to mirror the efficiency of the owner’s personality.

As per Jaime’s custom, within a few minutes, they sat across from one another with the aroma of fine coffee emanating from their cups.

She had matched his hazelnut with milk.

They spent the forty-five minutes prioritising and strategising against some of the heightened threats to UK security.

Most of the threats stemmed from Russian and Chinese-sponsored disinformation operations. These threats were outside the remit and scope of The Chameleon Project, but Jaime had a contact in GCHQ arranged through Bruce, now maintained by Ciara, that he could pass concerns on to.

More within their wheelhouse was the rise of right-wing movements against the Islamification of the UK and unchecked immigration.

The protests had proved relatively peaceful so far, but foreign state and non-state actors looked to fan the flames to initiate coordinated or ‘lone-wolf’ attacks.

They were currently running an agent in one of the more extremist elements of the right-wing movements who had been liaising with their Scandinavian counterparts.

Ciara and Jaime had also succeeded in thwarting an Iranian-sponsored operation to disrupt imported energy into the UK.

Finally, Ciara asked, “When will Connor be recovered enough to return home?”

To her knowledge, Connor currently lay in a private hospital in Alaska, recovering from lacerations to his arms, sternum bruising and exhaustion.

For a while now, the thirty-year-old Yorkshireman had held the position of being The Project’s best agent overall; in addition to a mind capable of both lightning-quick battle decision-making and strategic thinking, Connor also tested the highest in both armed and unarmed combat.

And he had just completed a mission against one of Canada’s most ruthless mafias to prevent a plague of killer opioids flooding Canada’s city streets.

Jaime looked at her. “Bruce already brought him home. Connor is in Leeds as we speak.”

Ciara raised her eyebrows. “Why did Bruce risk exposure to go and collect him?”

“He went to ask for his help.”

Ciara answered, “Bruce did mention something to me a few weeks ago. I didn’t know he would be required this early, though.”

“I spoke to Bruce just before your arrival. He altered his stance regarding allowing Connor at least some kind of rest and recuperation. But he needs him in Ukraine.”

“Why?”

“He’ll brief you himself on that when he arrives.”

This heartened her somewhat—she didn’t like being the only one kept out of the loop or that her key man had been briefed without her knowledge.

“I see,” she replied.

Jaime said, “Some weeks before his last tasking, Connor finally submitted to an extensive psych evaluation.”

“I find that surprising,” said Ciara, meaning it—she had first-hand experience with his aversion to psychological scrutiny.

“Bruce told him that just because he had given Connor the discretion not to be subjected to one, he didn’t feel comfortable handing him over to you without completing one.”

“And?”

Jaime sighed. “He was shown as resistant to detailing any childhood trauma. I will send you the final report.”

“Can you give me the highlights?”

“For the first time, having evaluated hundreds of subjects, the panel of three could not agree or draw many definitive conclusions. They agree he possesses both psycho and sociopathic traits but would not commit to a full diagnosis of an anti-social personality disorder.”

“Not exactly news to either of us, is it?” she said rhetorically.

“No,” the Peruvian answered. “He displays perhaps the highest scores they have assessed for psychological hardiness and optimism, with an almost complete tilt towards problem-focused as opposed to emotion-focused coping.”

“Again, we both know that Connor seeks to resolve the cause of the issue rather than to reach for empathy to his feelings.”

Jaime nodded and continued, “They marked him in the upper percentile for altruism. The psychoanalysts have identified this as a possible neurotic syndrome to cope with guilt, anxiety or hostility stemming from childhood trauma.”

Knowing Jaime had summarised the report succinctly, Ciara said, “Let’s just be thankful he’s on our side.”

Connor Reed awoke in the embrace of a cloud-like, charcoal Moscow divan bed.

The sunlight from the black-bricked windows illuminated the dark blues, greys and ribbons of white throughout the room.

The smell of vanilla and sex floated.

Grace’s ass pressed into his cock, and his numbing left hand cupped one of her tits.

Though he managed to circumvent the hair-in-the-face annoyance by placing a pillow on the red mane, he sometimes mis-positioned his arm, cutting off blood flow.

As he began to ease it out Ninja-style, her relaxing, northeast England lilt declared, “I’ve been awake for ages.”

She spun into his muscled chest, sporting a ‘Superman’ tattoo on the right pectoral and a fading bruise at the centre of his sternum.

His eyes flicked to the circular wall clock, one half depicting a beach and the other a sea.

“Fucking Christ, seven o’clock,” he murmured.

Connor’s biorhythms usually woke him at five like clockwork.

“You must have needed it,” she said, her emerald eyes flicking dopamine through him.

Connor had returned from a particularly arduous tasking that involved, amongst other things, a hellish hike in the Yukon, being wounded in a knife fight and passing out from his body’s vasovagal response from a round to his body armour’s breastplate.

His sense of professional loyalty to Carlo Andaloro had set his course to assassinate Canada’s most powerful and ruthless Mafioso boss, Arturo Bianchi.

Carlo Andaloro had been a Consigliere per la Sicurezza—a mafia colloquialism for a captain who can be sent anywhere in the world to conduct or organise assassinations, kidnaps and other paramilitary operations. Literally translated as ‘Security Adviser’.

When Bianchi had targeted Carlo’s civilian sister, Arabella, Connor agreed to help him.

The mission had wider consequences than anyone could have reasonably expected upon embarking on it, but Connor succeeded, and Arabella was now safe.

However, it cost her brother his life.

On his immediate arrival back to the UK, Connor had a meeting with Alessio Letta, a chief financial officer of the ‘Ndrangheta and unofficial consigliere to whom the Italian media referred as the Capo dei Capi—boss of bosses—Italo Mauro.

The Italian had assured Connor that not only would there be no reprisals for either him or Arabella—but that Connor now had the friendship of ‘the old man’, meaning Italo Mauro.

Connor replied to Grace, “Yeah, it was a hard shift.”

“I’ll make coffee.”

He admired her big tits and ‘stretched hourglass’ figure like he always did. Her stomach sported the ‘tiger stripes’ of her pregnancy with their son, Jackson, which he thought added to her sexiness.

“Can I have it white?”

“Treating ourselves, are we?”

Connor just smiled in reply.

She disappeared, and he grabbed the remote from the bedside table.

He browsed her various subscriptions, flicked on the film ‘Green Book’ and paused it.

She returned with their coffees and got in with him.

“You ever seen this?”

“No.”

“Great film this.”

“Wait until the caffeine hits before starting a film.”

“Get up to much last night?”

“Dropped Jackson off at my gran’s. Your gran just happened to be there, obviously. Came back, had a tattoo client, watched the new Gladiators.”

“I can’t really remember the first series back in the nineties, but my uncle more than once told me that the one called ‘Jet’ was ‘So gorgeous I would crawl naked through an entire field of kettle-cooked salt ‘n’ vinegar chips with paper cuts all over my body just to reach the end and to hear her take a piss through an old cold war-era walkie-talkie.’”

“You might have to break it to your romantic uncle that she’s married to a woman now.”

“That’s his chances dashed then.”

“How long do I have your esteemed company for?”

“I don’t have to be anywhere until this afternoon.”

“What do you want to?”

“Stay in bed, watch a film, get fed.”

“Not usually like you,” she said. “You’re usually up and at ‘em.”

“I am not above a tactical recharge.”

“Good,” she said, reaching under the duvet. His back stiffened as she ran her fingernails up the inside of his leg.

“Wait until the caffeine hits before starting a session.”

“Touché.” She smiled. “Where you going this afternoon?”

“To see a man about a dog.”

3

Jaime Rangel’s air conditioning switched on, alerting him to Bruce McQuillan’s approach to the turn-off on the narrow, winding road almost a mile away.

He felt a tremor in his diaphragm as he watched the black BMW X5 Security Plus and Bruce’s face through the security cameras.

He announced to Ciara, “Bruce is two minutes away.”

As the X5 turned onto the nearly four-hundred-metre single road stretch, his software confirmed Bruce to be the vehicle’s only occupant.

Ciara simply nodded her acknowledgement, her face lit by the laptop screen.

The tiny cameras linked back to his facial recognition software and personalised database—Jaime would be immediately alerted if any murderers, assassins, terrorists, organised crime figures, or other persons of interest drove on the roads within the mile-and-a-half vicinity.

And this happened more regularly than he imagined in this rural part of Surrey—though only on the single carriage roads around his home, none on the country lane leading up to it.

He had wondered how many murderers an average Londoner passed on their way to work.

It dawned on him that the man coming to see him had killed many people.

However, Jaime felt safer with, and owed more, to the mid-fifties Scotsman than anyone else except his deceased father.

Around a decade ago, Jaime had been a student at Imperial College London—with a hobby of hacking into various government and large corporation networks and databases.

He loved it—and still did—but didn’t like it when Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, or Sluzhba Vneshney razvedki Rossiyskoy Federatsii (SVR), marked him for ‘rendition’.

The SVR, though not the force their precursor, the KGB, had been, was nevertheless formidable and dangerous.

Most in intelligence believed them to be behind the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko. The former KGB agent had fled to the UK for political asylum in exchange for information. In November 2006, Litvinenko fell ill and was hospitalised with radiation poisoning, dying three weeks later.

Jaime knew he must have been one of the few people in the world who could have ascertained Bruce’s role back then.

Undoubtedly, the black operations chief was wary of a trap and had done his due diligence.

Jaime, already slight in build, had seen stress strip the fat from his body and remembered how he had sunken into his oversized cardigan during the meeting at the British Library on Euston Road.

And so began a professional relationship that had proved extremely useful to both parties.

How McQuillan had deterred the Russians, Jaime could only guess—surreally, he seemed to have weight with them up to the highest level of their intelligence apparatus.

Alexey Orlov had been the director of the SVR—The Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation—until recently, and even he seemed to have some wariness towards the Scotsman.

He guessed it had something to do with Yuri Kozlov, Bruce’s friend from the ‘old days’—meaning his SAS career—and nuclear weapons in the nineties.

McQuillan’s file had been redacted to the degree that not even Jaime could decipher it. Not that he had tried very hard—he didn’t want to confront McQuillan’s disappointment in the face of disrespecting his professional privacy.

He got up to greet the Scotsman at the door, feeling that making him knock and wait would be disrespectful.

He opened the door and watched Bruce approach, whose eyes flicked to either side.

A little greyer, a touch less angular than when Jaime first met him, the tall mid-fifties Glaswegian still cut an imposing figure.

He held out his hand and asked, “Jaime, you well?”

“Yes, thank you,” he replied, shaking hands with the man who could crush his if he chose.

Apart from Ciara, the Scotsman was the only person who had visited him at home.

If Jaime ever dated a woman, he’d take them to his second home in London.

He always reset the security parameters when leaving so that if he was kidnapped and made to return here, the cameras would pick up on the unwelcome guests and alert both Bruce and Ciara.

Whether he could ‘hold out’ and not divulge potentially life-condemning information to his would-be kidnappers until the cavalry arrived wasn’t something he relished testing.

He stepped back to allow Bruce in.

The younger man led him to the kitchen to see that Ciara had stood for him.

“Hi, Bruce.”

“Hi, Ciara,” the Scotsman replied. “How was Paris?”

“Very romantic.”

“Good,” said Bruce, the exchange momentarily confusing Jaime.

The taller man gestured to the transparent glass toaster. “First time I have seen one of them.”

“There are many available, but I designed that with the selector being the ‘how well done’ you would like your toast, not by time or numbers.”

Indeed, the eight selections went from ‘barely done’ to ‘burnt to a crisp’.

He didn’t bother asking Bruce if he wanted a coffee, simply flicking on another of his inventions—a super-fast coffee machine—to make them all one with Ethiopian beans.

They settled down and drank in silence for a few minutes.

“It’s that time,” said Bruce.

“Of course,” he replied.

Bruce looked at Ciara. “Jaime and I believe there is a highly placed Russian mole within the highest echelons of either the Israeli security apparatus or its government.”

“What makes you say that?” she asked.

Jaime answered, “Intercepted signal chatter from the Russian Embassy in Berlin.”

“We haven’t been able to corroborate anything as yet.”

Ciara said, “What does that mean for UK security?”

Bruce replied, “The Russians want the US financial aid package to be diverted away from Ukraine to Israel. They can make a final surge and negotiate more favourable terms with Ukraine forced over a barrel if successful. The best way they can do that is to galvanise the Middle East into war.”

“Which could have an adverse effect on much of the rest of the world,” said Ciara.

“Indeed,” replied Bruce. “Parker has asked me to go over there at their behest to investigate the failings that allowed for the October seventh attack to be so successful. I’ll head out tomorrow.”

After a moment of quiet, Ciara said, “You knew ahead of time you’d be asked to go, didn’t you?”

The question took Jaime back, as did Bruce’s answer.

“Around a year and a half ago, I flew to Tel Aviv at the request of the head of Tevel, Ann Zurer, to meet with Naftali Avidan and Raz Sharir, the chief of Caesarea.”

“To what end?”

“They wanted to hear any suggestions I might have regarding dealing with Hezbollah.”

“You must have impressed them,” said Ciara.

“Ann Zurer forewarned me they would request me for the investigation. However, I will be shadowed by a Shin Bet’s Protective Security Department bodyguard.”

“Well, that’s not a conflict of interest at all,” said Ciara drily.

“I have not met Shin Bet’s David Nazzal. An all-staff memo was made public, showing him taking full responsibility. I can imagine him being a touch more defensive when we meet.”

“I read the same memo,” said Ciara. “His mind seems to be firmly on retribution. Likened his goal to Operation Wrath of God.”

Jaime recognised the code name to refer to Israel’s assassination campaign of vengeance after the kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

“I should imagine that was—or is—the prevailing mood over there,” said Bruce.

Ciara changed the subject. “Jaime said you went to collect Connor from Canada.”

“My old friend Yuri Kozlov has developed one or two contacts within the Russian security apparatus in his role with the FISU. As you know, he was former Spetsnaz, and even when Spetsnaz got rerolled into the post-Soviet republics, he fought in the first Chechen war and the Tajikistani Civil War. He’s maintained a few contacts.”

Known in the West as FISU, Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, it was referred to as the SZRU in Ukraine—a Romanised acronym for Sluzhba zovnishn’oyi rozvidky Ukrayiny,

Ciara said, “And all the while, he’s a member of the Partisanen der Nato—talk about knowing your enemy.”

She referred to the Partisans of Nato, which originated from West Germany. The organisation to subvert Russian influence had significantly reduced, but not deceased, post-Berlin Wall collapse.

“As you know, a chess master has to look several moves ahead,” said Bruce. “Several weeks ago, a contact of Yuri’s had informed him that the Russians had moved radiological dispersal weapons into Novorossiysk.”

“A scare tactic?”

“Could have been. Or maybe a contingency should the Russians have failed to hold Crimea and lost its dominance in the Black Sea. We know the idea would have been for one of the private armies to be tasked with setting it off in a major Ukrainian city. The idea has been abandoned.”

“Why?” she asked.

Bruce looked at Jaime, who took the hint to speak.

“With the Wagner Group’s past munity, it seems the Kremlin decided against entrusting a mercenary army with such a task. Yuri’s contact indicated they will be moved, with at least one going to a decommissioning station in the Tarumovsky District in the most northern-east corner of Dagestan.”

Ciara said, “I sense a big ‘but’ coming.”

Bruce said, “I have a contact in Israel who believes that elements within the Russian Security Services might orchestrate for it to ‘fall off the back of the lorry’.”

“I see,” said Ciara. “To start another war and divert US aid away from Ukraine.”

Bruce answered, “This contact asked me for my assistance. I reached out to Yuri. I didn’t want to step on your toes, Ciara, but I wanted to ask Connor to his face. As you said, this isn’t within The Project’s direct sphere. Of all the assets I know of, I believe he has the best chance of crossing into Crimea—he’s done it before. Now he’s accepted, I wanted to ask you if I can use him.”

To Jaime, Bruce sincerely asking Ciara for her permission represented the change in the dynamics of their relationship.

“And he has contacts in Odessa Mafia?”

“His family and Leonid Honchar are still in a business partnership,” said Bruce. “And Honchar is currently in Sevastopol.”

Bruce referred to perhaps the most powerful boss in the criminal collective known as the Odessa Mafia.

“What about Roza Afandi?”

Afandi had followed her Chechnyan mother, Khava Afandi—the Black Widow—in the trade of assassinating Russian military and security personnel.

If anything, Roza’s myth had exceeded her mother’s to the point that not even Jaime or Bruce had been confident of her existence, until she had aided Connor and Ciara in an operation to save Tatar children from a Ukrainian psychopath around half a decade ago.

“If the paramilitary group Povernuto still exists, it must be at a subsistence level. Only he knows if he can contact her if she is still alive, let alone in Crimea.”

Povernuto roughly translated to ‘The Returned’, referencing the mass deportation of Crimea’s Tatar population during World War II and their subsequent arrival back.

“If Connor has agreed, then of course,” said Ciara. “Though I do not quite understand how Connor’s visiting Crimea will help your investigation.”

“Jaime,” said Bruce, “let’s show Ciara what we have so far.”

Jaime tapped a sequence onto what appeared to be a coffee coaster, the cupboards in front of the kitchen table opening to reveal a large screen.

As the information appeared, Ciara asked, “How much does Connor know?”

“Nothing in detail, but he’s on standby for a while,” said Bruce. “Hopefully, he’s taking the opportunity to rest.”

Andrew Troy sat in his third-floor office overlooking the River Humber, readjusting a figurine ornament of a bull and matador.

He stood from his leather reclining chair and crescent-shaped wooden desk to stretch to his full height, a handful of inches over six feet.

Fuckin’ all-day desk-sitting is worse for your back than trade work, he thought.

Back in his rugby days, one of his teammates nicknamed him ‘Bamboo’ due to his strength, despite his rail-like physique. That had been nearly twenty years ago, and his angular edges had softened.

As he approached the window, his reflection revealed that any remaining black hair was thatched beneath the grey.

Troy had decided over a year ago to cash in his chips and go legitimate.

Part of one of the most notorious crime families in the East Riding of Yorkshire, he had controlled the highly lucrative importation of drugs and guns into the port.

Just over a year ago, he had been a backchannel to the Franklin Organised Crime group—the FOC. The Irish-based organisation had, up until then, been Europe’s most dangerous and profitable criminal organisation.

They had shockingly lost a war to the much smaller, less powerful Ryder family from Leeds.

And Troy had fed the FOC intelligence through an angry and hurt Curtis Ryder, who his family had exiled to Hull.

When Curtis had been found murdered, Andrew Troy had spent a small fortune on discreet and professional security.

However, retribution never came, and after three months, he cut away the protective team.

Though he didn’t know exactly how the Ryders had won the war, he understood Connor Reed would have been at the centre of it.

When the Troys and Ryders crossed swords a few years back, the Troys came off second-best.

Connor Reed had not only kidnapped, tortured and branded for life Andrew’s fuck-head brother, Mark, but he had also managed to single-handedly fight his way out of an ambush triggered by former Serbian paramilitaries.

The Ryders then taxed the Troys, and Andrew had thrown his lot in with the FOC to get the monkey off his back.

He always worked late on Fridays. He wanted to tie up all the loose ends so his mind wouldn’t wander over the weekend.

Just as he began to pack up, his mobile phone went.

He left his older brother, Fred, for a few rings before answering, “Hello.”

Andrew Troy turned, deciding to get rid of the green carpet as it reminded him too much of a golf course.

“I’ve got to talk to ya, kidda. Tonight.”

Andrew bit his tongue; Fred wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.

“OK. Where?”

“It’s up to you. Your house, or you can come ‘ere.”

Andrew didn’t want his coarse elder brother showing up at his house at this time of night. His new girlfriend would give him an earful when he eventually got his boisterous brother out.

“I’ll come to you.”

“Grand. What time?”

“Fuck’s sake,” said Andrew, now irritated. “I am setting off now.”

The dynamic between himself and his elder brother had changed over the last few years.

When their father died, Fred, on account of being the oldest and most physically capable in a fight, took over the family’s illegal businesses.

However, it had been Andrew’s brain that had expanded them to become players of national repute.

And subtly, Andrew had been seen as the head of the family more and more. Andrew tried not to rub it in Fred’s face, and Fred didn’t attempt to reassert any lost dominance.

“Calm yersen, was only asking.”

Andrew said in a gentler voice, “Be around twenty minutes.”

He ended the call, packed his things and donned his suede and lamb fleece jacket over his white shirt.

He took the lift to the underground car park and decided to text rather than call Libby regarding not being home on time—he couldn’t be fucked with the earache.

The lift doors opened, and Andrew still felt a tick of appreciation seeing his four-year-old cricket-ball-red Bentley Continental GT.

He would never have purchased a vehicle so extravagant when the dirt of crime laced his fingernails.

Though the novelty had worn off, he still enjoyed looks fired in the car’s direction.

He slid into the dream-like luxury and began the liquid smooth drive. Andrew disliked taking the vehicle down to Fred’s kennels.

He bred various dogs, including Rottweilers, Pit Bulls, Dobermans, Cane Corsos, and, until recently, XL Bullies.

Fred had had an altercation with an army sergeant in a pub in Beverley over the new laws forbidding the selling, breeding or giving away of an XL Bully. They stated that the animals should be put on a lead and muzzled in public.

When Fred stated that the owners made dangerous dogs, not the breeds, his fellow debater stated, “Yeah, but a fuckin’ poodle isn’t going to do much damage, however badly you raise it. Dogs like an XL Bully are for wannabe hard men who couldn’t fight sleep!”

The middle-aged soldier, clearly on a course at the military driving school down nearby Leconfield, did not know of his notorious brother’s reputation, so the glass etching a patchwork into his face would have been unexpected.

He slid his car into a spot a short walk from the kennels, which, from a distance, resembled a scrapyard with cages.

Not wishing for his jacket to get covered in dog hair, he removed it before getting out of the Bentley.

He couldn’t hear the dogs, which meant his brother had resorted to his trick of sedating them. He had gotten the doses wrong early on, and a few dogs had died.

The black and white signage for ‘F.T. Dog Breeding and Training’ matched the city’s rugby team colours. The black silhouette of a Doberman stood to attention.

He looked at the shadowy glass domes of the security cameras that he knew looked out much further than was legal.

The middle Troy brother approached the entrance gates and tapped the security monitor.

The automated gates slid open, and he walked in.

He had never been here at night and thought it mildly eerie without the dogs incessantly barking.

Andrew went to the far side, where his older brother’s converted caravan stood. He could see the flickering screen of Fred’s small vintage television set.

Andrew gave the perfunctory knock before opening the door.

A metallic cylinder knocked against the back of his head, and simultaneously, a hand twisted the back of his shirt into a fist.

His insides liquidised on hearing the rough West Yorkshire brogue: “Don’t make any sudden movements, Andrew, unless you’re John Wick.”

The door fully opened to reveal Tom Ryder pointing a Beretta 92 with a suppressor at him.

The eldest Ryder cousin said, “Let’s go to the barn where your brother ‘trains’ the dogs.”

He felt the pull on his shirt as his shoes suddenly felt three times their weight.

The fist released his shirt, and as he turned, he watched Connor Reed jog to a position ahead of him, also pointing a suppressed Beretta 92.

Andrew knew he couldn’t escape two barrels trained at angles.

He felt his lungs expelling an imaginary black smoke threatening to choke him.

The faux barn loomed like a haunted house.

He opened the door and stepped inside.

Moonlight pierced the missing slates in the corrugated roof, illuminating patches on the rough concrete on which his fifteen-and-a-half-stone brother lay, crumpled like a couple of bin bags.

Dark plums had replaced his eyes, his nose had swelled, and his jaw seemed misaligned, sporting a mashed mouth. Blood streamed down his face like claret tears.

The lithe, athletic, bright blond Luke Ryder stood over his shaking brother like a father watching his son build a sandcastle.

“Stand in centre, Andrew-san,” mocked Connor Reed in a parody of Japanese.

Both he and Tom then circled to his front.

The Ryder trio all wore plain, dark trousers, T-shirts and trainers.

“Couldn’t help yourself, could you, Andrew?” started Tom.

“Coul… Couldn’t help what?”

“You decided to inform against us to the FOC, knowing those evil cunts would target the civilian members of our family.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We don’t act off guesses—don’t insult our intelligence.”

Connor Reed interjected, “Besides, why would a man surround himself with a protection detail for three months after David Franklin suffered a misfortune?”

“It had nothing to do with that. It was a dispute down south.”

“With whom?”

“The… ahem… The—”

“Stop fucking embarrassing yourself,” said Luke.

Connor said, “You’ll be afforded the same as your brother—a straightener. No weapons. Tom lost ‘stone, paper, scissors’, so I guess it’s you and I, Burj Khalifa.”

Luke asked, “Why did you call him Burj Khalifa?”

Connor frowned despite Luke being behind him. “Cos he’s a tall cunt, isn’t he?”

“Oh, that Dubai skyscraper.”

“You’ve ruined the funny now,” answered Connor.

The pair’s light-heartedness scared Andrew Troy more than an overt show of intimidation.

“This is bullshit,” exclaimed Andrew. “If I win, you won’t let me go, anyway.”

Connor replied, “You tarnish us with the standards of honour you hold, Andrew.”

Tom said, “We were very reasonable in our terms after you tried to encroach on our territory, not to mention trying to have Connor ‘ere killed. And you mistook our kindness for weakness. We should have done this then.”

Luke said, “It’s like one of those ‘Final Destination’ films.”

“So,” said Connor, “what are the rules?”

“What do you mean?”

“A fists-only straightener or, as our Gypsy cousins called it, a no-holds-barred ‘Dirty Go’?”

Andrew’s heart spiked again. He had always been a good fighter and held significant weight and height advantages.

He reckoned he’d have a better chance in an all-in scenario but surmised that losing a straightener might be less painful.

“What if I win?”

“Then you walk,” said Connor.

“Bullshit. I beat you and I walk?”

“Yes. But hey, no harm in seeing if it’s true, eh?”

I am bigger. I am heavier. I’ve won loads of fights in the roughest of Hull’s pubs.

Andrew cleared his throat. “An all-in.”

4

Andrew Troy rolled his sleeves tightly and took a fighting stance.

His legs shook. He took a step towards his antagonist.

The taller man couldn’t see a hint of tension on Connor Reed.

He knew nothing good could come from hesitancy. He marched over, chin down and guard up.

Feinting with a right, he threw a huge left hook.

As if teleported, Connor appeared at an angle on his left side.

A hammer-like impact blasted his lung air into his throat, doubling him over.

The power shocked Andrew, who scrambled away, clutching his solar plexus.

His opponent seemed in no hurry to finish him, and he sauntered over.

The Hull man played on his being winded.

When Reed got within a few steps, Andrew hurled himself like a human torpedo at his legs.

Like his two brothers, Andrew played rugby to a commendable level—and was used to taking men down.

Except the legs shot back from his grasp, the impact of a shoulder rammed into the base of his neck, and a vice-like hand clamped his chin.

In a flash, Connor had spun around him.

A jaw punch from underneath short-circuited him onto his belly.

He felt a pair of feet stand on his back.

The Wessy crooned, “Cos I’m always ready, I won’t let you out of my sight!”

Instantly recognising the nineties ‘Baywatch’ television series theme song lyrics and the surfing reference, he shook the younger man off him in a berserk rage.

When he heard the ghoulish laughter of the Ryder trio, his fury pumped the nerves out of him.

He rushed at his quarry with a fury of straights and swings.

The dirty blond, seemingly with his feet rooted, evaded blows by ducking, twisting or bending from the side.

On one duck, Troy felt Reed’s forehead cannon into his stomach and the edges of Reed’s hands chop into the back of his knees.

He toppled.

Unlike in rugby games, his tackler remained on his feet, so the takedown barely hurt.

The toe cap to his mouth did.

His lower teeth smashed out under his lower lip like bloodied glaciers as shards of pulp, dentine, enamel, and cementum danced on the back of his tongue.

His legs scrambled for purchase so he could escape. Almost upright to run, the same teeth-smashing toe cap crushed his balls, rocketing agony through his stomach.

He vomited as he collapsed to the floor. He didn’t register that he lay crumpled in the sick and stomach bile while begging for the nauseating pain to subside.

Connor Reed, in a voice full of breath, said, “Like I said earlier, what really fucked us off, Andrew, was our civilian family members being targeted. If they hadn’t, we might have left it as a beating and taxation.”

With his hands cupping his balls and eyes squeezed tightly against the black ache, the taller man croaked, “I… I didn’t know they would go after your non-grafter family.”

“Don’t talk fucking wet. They were shooting babies and throwing acid in the faces of young girls. You knew what they’d do. Just accept your penance like a man.”

A knee smashed into the side of his neck, pinning his face to the floor.

He felt his left arm ripping out and being clamped by a figure-of-four grip.

The Yorkshireman wrenched his arm up and around his back.

His agonised roars reverberated off the barn walls at the breaking of his shoulder joint.

Released, Reed allowed him to bathe in his hurt for a few moments.

“I didn’t want to use submission grappling or Jiu-jitsu in case you bit me, cos then I’d have had to bite you, and it would have ruined my appetite. Speaking of which, your brother usually starves the adult dogs and bashes them with a stick to aggravate them.”

Andrew’s mind began to burn. Indeed, Fred did starve and beat the dogs into salivating, hyper-aggressive beasts. He said that to train them properly, he had to show them that he had the power of control over them before introducing the treats and praise.

Andrew had been unnerved watching the intent behind the dogs’ muzzled attacks on his eighteen-stone older brother, who laughed at their futility despite being knocked to the floor on several occasions.

He registered Connor saying, “Something I’ve pondered before is when the telly adverts claim that their dog food has a ‘new and improved’ taste, who exactly is doing the testing?”

Luke said, “Dunno, some fuckin’ super smart dog.”

“Maybe,” replied Connor. “And how can something be ‘new and improved’? If it’s new, what’s it improving on?”

Luke started to answer, “Maybe they mean—”

Tom Ryder interrupted, “Can we continue this discussion in the car? Could do with getting home sometime tonight.”

“Luke and I will go get them, mate.”

“Connor, my back is fine now,” came the reply.

“Tom, the two XL Bullies are around seventy fuckin’ kilos. And they are sedated weights now.”

“I can do it. You’re a better shot, anyway. ‘Ere you are, take your Berretta back off Luke, and we’ll go get ‘em.”

Andrew watched the suppressed pistol being passed to Connor and the other two Leeds men leave.

Connor said, “I had a healthy amount of respect for the whole gun-running-encroaching-on-our-city thing you tried. But selling intelligence to the FOC tipped me over the edge.”

With indignation temporarily overcoming his pain and fear, Andrew Troy spat, “You’re lecturing me on morals? You topped your uncle and cousin.” He heard a snorting chuckle.

“We let the rest of the underworld think that. But I can tell you now that we did neither.”

The East Riding gangster went cold—He can tell me now.

His eyes flicked over to Fred, who began to slowly drag himself up into a sitting position.

Andrew pleaded, “We have money, you know that. Just take what you need. It was just business.”

“Let me ask you a question, Andrew. If your friend had a snake, asked you to pick it up, and it bit you—then your mate reassures you of its friendliness, only for it to bite you again—would you stick your hand in a third time?”

Andrew opened his mouth to answer but couldn’t.

The door bounced open to reveal Tom and Luke Ryder lugging a massive Dogo Argentino before they set it down.

It rolled onto its back as if attempting to sunbathe.

Connor said, “We’re not sure why your fuck-head brother would import a UK-banned dog, but then we realised—it’s because he’s a fuck-head.”

The two cousins ferried in a further pair of XL Bullies.

Connor gestured to the dogs and said, “That’s why I never leave home without wearing a belt.”

Luke asked, “Why’s that?”

“Cos using a looped belt around the throat of one of those monsters to let go of a bite is preferable to sticking your fingers up its arse, unless you’re into that,” said Connor. “Plus, you can use your belt as a tourniquet—a tip for you there.”

Connor descended into a deep squat and continued, “Your brother must have had the sound system speakers set so high that the dogs couldn’t reach them. But it means that not even a cloud-licker like you can reach them. And dogs can hear twice as many frequencies as us. Like the one that’s going to play for a few minutes. It’ll seem strange at first when the dogs suddenly start going fucking mental.”

When they began to show signs of life, Connor said, “We’re going to leave you all alone to get on with it. We’re banking that there will be so little of you and big Fred left for forensics they’ll be unable to tell you received a beating before this.”

“Please, please, ple—”

Another boot to the jaw short-circuited Andrew’s pleading, slumping him onto the deck.

He could just make out his brother receiving a kicking.

The trio left, and slamming the door seemed to spark life into the dogs.

After a minute, he heard the pop of the speakers connecting to the source.

The dogs’ eyes seemed yellow through the saliva-spraying barks.

The XL Bullies launched at his flailing brother, whose shouts and screams echoed off the walls.

The Argentino began to approach him with a look of menacing curiosity.

Andrew stood, hoping that his height might put off the hundred-pound canine.

As soon as he did, the animal flew at him.

Its fangs punctured a tearing pain through an arm as the canine attempted to rag the broken shoulder from its socket.

He desperately tried kneeing the beast whose gleeful growls sounded like a petrol lawnmower on idle.

Balance deserted his legs as the dog’s tail wagged insanely.

The Dogo released his bloodied forearm, only to sink its teeth into his arse.

Now on his hands and knees, he witnessed the surreal scene of his brother sitting crying as the XL Bullies ate him.

5

For decades, Bruce McQuillan resisted the urge to fly first class.

He felt removing himself from the public he protected could lead to apathy towards them and a dulling of his ‘street instincts’.

The Glaswegian also knew that getting used to first class would mean forever feeling cramped while flying standard.

However, as this was business in an ‘official’ capacity, he had allowed it, just as he had the last time he came to Israel.

His tranquil cream and chocolate enclosure smelt faintly of vanilla and felt like a miniature hotel room.

When he reclined the seat to a forty-five-degree angle for a nap, it felt like the clouds he now stared at.

Curious, he selected a melon Fanta and stretched his legs out.

He quickly re-read the intelligence package Jaime had worked up before putting it away and taking out a paperback titled, ‘The Silkworm’ by J. K. Rowling’s other pen name ‘Robert Galbraith’, that he was enjoying.

Bruce had recently made an attempt to reacquire the habit of reading fiction novels after losing it in the late nineties in the wake of entering a near-continuous cycle of black operations.

However, his Italian-Albanian girlfriend, journalist Adriana Cruz, had encouraged more ‘recreation to recharge’ in his life. She had never pressured him, but he realised he wanted to marry her.

Though he and Miles Parker had had their disputes and verbal altercations in the distant past, these had steadily dissipated.

Except for his boss’s attempt to take him to task regarding becoming involved with an international journalist—and a foreign one at that.

Bruce did not take it personally; had he done so, his reply would have been more monosyllabic.

He assured Parker that not only were any devices at his residence highly encrypted, but he never ‘talked shop’ with her.

The latter was only partially true; Bruce would, at times, probe her brain on geopolitical topics that might relate to his work—ask her about rumours—but no specifics.

His mind snapped back to the task at hand.

Though experienced in ‘The Troubles’, the ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland paled with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian war in terms of lives lost.

In the 2014 Gaza War, it had been estimated that over two thousand Palestinians lost their lives in that nearly seven-week Israeli military operation—as opposed to the three and a half thousand lives estimated throughout the thirty-year Northern Irish armed conflict.

Bruce had worked hard to compartmentalise any prejudices regarding the Israeli-Palestine struggle in a mental file he liked to name ‘Pending’.

The former special forces soldier had studied the conflict as much as feasible. Despite his warning to the Israeli trio he met a year and a half ago and what he had said to Parker, he had been surprised by the degree of success HAMAS had with the attack they codenamed Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

On a purely mechanical level, the attack had impressed him. The coordination of thousands of rockets fired to occupy the vaunted Iron Dome and to distract the IDF alone must have required an extraordinary level of OPSEC—Operational Security—and planning.

Even more so, the simultaneous infiltration of hundreds of militants at numerous points along the Iron Wall via explosive entries and bulldozing with drone attacks on the cameras.

Vehicles and even paragliders had carried Gazan-based rebels into the attack.

The consensus regarded Israel’s foreign spy agency, Mossad, as the most efficient on the planet. Their internal security service, Shin Bet, and their military intelligence, Aman, had similarly exalted reputations.

The acute competency of the Israeli Intelligence and Security apparatus had been borne out of necessity. Hostile forces had surrounded the nation since its inception, and the Holocaust resulted in a cultural cynicism of any foreign ‘cavalry’ coming to their aid.

Bruce supposed that with the constant amount of intelligence traffic needing to be processed, it would be difficult in the extreme to analyse each piece of data thoroughly.

However, in this case, it had been alleged that not only had Egypt warned the Israelis three days before the attacks but that they had received details on the attack plan a year before.

Though his remit was to aid the Israeli Security Services with their investigation, he couldn’t help but think he might be heading into hostile territory.

A light tap sounded on his door.

“Yeah,” he called.

It opened to reveal a tall, symmetrically faced stewardess. The blue and white blazer wrapped her trim figure with a matching pill-box style hat covering her pinned-up dark hair.

“We are due to land in fifteen minutes, sir.”

“Thank you.”

She seemed to hesitate for a split second before she asked, “Is your visit business or pleasure?”

He looked at her. “Since I still enjoy my profession, I’ll say both.”

He picked up the novel, and she slid away.

Connor Reed drove along the A61 trunk road with the pleasant thrum of the Black Panamera ST Turbo engine in his ears and the post-valet smell.

Tom had recently acquired the Porsche, which he suggested to avoid the LC500’s back passenger cramping despite the journey to Harrogate taking less than an hour.

Connor had requested to drive it up, as Tom would be staying sober to come back down and felt a little guilty cheating on his Lexus wife, and he enjoyed the agile glide of the air suspension cruising.

His forearms appeared from his olive green shirt, the grooves standing out as he gripped the steering wheel. His tan trousers separated his arse from the similarly coloured leather seats.

Beside him sat his younger cousin, Luke Ryder, in an airy salmon suit, and in the back, their elder cousin, Tom Ryder, in an unbuttoned collared denim shirt with a black T-shirt.

There had been a mild debate as to who would get the front passenger seat, with Tom insisting that Luke take it so Tom could ‘stretch out in the back’.

Connor knew it was Tom’s way of letting Luke know he saw him as an equal. Though Connor knew Luke would likely always see Tom as above him.

They formed the leadership of the Ryder criminal dynasty out of the northern city of Leeds, England.

They distributed minimally cut high-quality narcotics to the middle-to-upper classes in what estate agents termed ‘The Golden Triangle’—the area lying between Harrogate, York and Leeds.

One of the narcotics they distributed was the substance SYN C17H21NO4, chemically engineered by their Dutch suppliers. It had been designed with the aim of the come-down being ‘…a feathery descent to one’s physiological start-state’ and thus went by the street name of ‘NoLo’.

Though Connor felt the claims made by the drug delved into the realms of mythology, the drug had proved to be highly profitable for the Ryder clan.

Connor briefly pressed his foot down to apply the over six hundred foot-pounds of torque, pushing them all back into their seats.

“Fuck me,” he exclaimed. “It’s like a Yautja in a business suit.”

“Yeah, it’s a beast,” agreed Tom.

“I remember all those eighties action films Uncle Mike used to stick on when we were kids,” said Luke. “‘ere’s one for ya. Rambo or Arnie’s Dutch from the first ‘Predator’.”

After a moment, Connor replied, “Rambo.”

“Eh? Dutch killed a fuckin’ Predator!”

Connor said, “A teenage Native American girl killed a Predator armed with only a sixteenth-century pistol.”

Luke retorted, “Am talking about an eighties Predator, not a modern-day diversity, feminist-obsessed Predator.”

Tom, whose girlfriend and mother of his son was mixed-race, said, “If girls of colour see someone who looks like them on screen, it inspires them.”

Luke jumped on that with, “To kill intergalactic space hunters?!”

The trio burst into laughter.

When it calmed, Luke said, “I am just saying that Dutch killed the ultimate killing machine. Rambo started off mercing yokel, redneck coppers.”

Connor frowned. “He started in Vietnam killing the Viet Cong. And Dutch beat that Predator by fluke, falling into the mud.”

“And Rambo survives cos when he gets captured, they torture him instead of just killing him.”

“You mean they interrogate him for information like they are meant to.”

Luke asked, “Tom, who do you think?”

“I think Dutch wins just for the line, ‘Let off some steam, Bennet.’”

Luke exclaimed, “But that’s the wrong fil—”

“Waaheyy,” announced Tom, indicating he had got Luke on a bite.

Connor smiled—it was usually Luke attempting, and usually failing, to trick his elder cousin.

After a while, Connor asked, “You touched base with Alex Norland yet?”

Alexander Norland was the unofficial head of the Norland-Green Syndicate, an amalgamation via several marriages between the Norlands of Essex and the Greens of Hornchurch.

The Norlands were reputed to be the brains of the union, controlled a few of the inlets along the Thames, and had silent stakes in a couple of the shipping companies.

The Greens enforced the distribution of the product. The partnership had proved successful, and Connor admired how the marriages almost feudally guarded against criminal greed imploding the alliance.

Connor had negotiated an agreement with Alexander Norland, a suit tailor by trade, to distribute NoLo.

“Arranged a meeting with him next week. I told him it’s normally touch and go as to whether or not you could make it. He seemed to accept that.”

“Maybe we should have invited him up here,” said Connor.

Tom said, “I try to keep the ‘straight-goers’ of the family away from that side as much as I can.”

Luke asked, “Why are we throwing Katie and Jennifer’s going away party up in Harrogate? What’s wrong with The Buxton Arms?”

After meeting a Swedish orthodontist, Jennifer, widowed by their uncle Derek, had decided to open a bar and restaurant in Stockholm.

On hearing of this, their cousin Katie had asked to join for a summer.

“We’re not. Daniel Weisz caught wind of them going and said he’s throwing a party in Harrogate anyway, and he’d spoil them both if we came. Katie is at Jennifer’s, and Weisz is sending a limousine for them.”

“Fuck’s sake,” murmured Luke. “He’ll try and get me steaming—he’s like P. Diddy with a finance degree.”

Weisz had been one of the Ryder family’s money launderers for several years. And he had made it clear that he fancied the heterosexual Luke.

“Don’t be like that, Luke. You can be like that Tom Hardy character in ‘RocknRolla’.”

“He’s just so obvious with it—there’s no… What’s that word? Subtlety. He genuinely makes me feel like a lass sometimes.”

Connor and Tom chuckled; Luke had been, until very recently, one of the country’s premier bare-knuckle boxers. Still in his twenties, he had voluntarily stepped off that pedestal to concentrate on the ‘family business’.

And Luke might have been able to knock out Weisz—a middle-aged accountant—with a slap.

Luke asked, “Why did you accept?”

Tom sighed. “A lot of reasons. Katie’s having a leaving do at The Buxton next weekend anyway, and my mum gets a bit frosty when Jennifer’s name is brought up. Jennifer lives up here now, so she doesn’t have to get a room or a taxi, and besides, it’s an opportunity to network.”

“Better be food there. Starving now,” said Luke.

“Fuck—that reminds me, he’s laying out a six-course meal, and I need your choices. Should have had them in by now.”

“Six fuckin’ courses?!” exclaimed Luke.

“I told you this before.”

“You know what I am like,” sighed Luke. “If I had a pound for every time I didn’t know what the fuck was going on, I’d be like, ‘Where’s all this money coming from?’”

Connor watched the joke instantly smooth the annoyance off his elder cousin’s face, who proceeded to sing out the menu options.

Once the cousins had chosen, Connor asked, “Did Charlie not want to come?”

“Nah,” said Tom. “Gets a bit funny when he’s around loads of people he doesn’t know. He’ll be at the one at The Buxton, though.”

“And our Dan is away to Berlin,” said Luke, referring to his elder brother, before continuing, “I am not sure why Aunt Cath has such a wide-on for Jennifer—unless she’s making out that Jennifer put Derek up to all that heinous stuff.”

Tom answered, “If she’s fucking off for good, it might be best to leave sleeping dogs lie.”

Connor kept quiet for a few moments. When it had come out that Derek had Connor’s dad, Greg—his own brother—murdered, Connor had beaten his uncle bloody in a straight match fight.

Before Connor used his Fairburn-Sykes dagger to carve a Japanese Gajin into his treacherous uncle’s forehead, Derek had attempted to explain his actions with, “There was—stuff with our Jennifer, and—he wasn’t the Messiah everyone makes out.”

Certain memories had returned to him since then—like Magic Eye pictures that only became clear with age. He remembered once, as a child, walking into the kitchen and seeing Jennifer there helping his dad tuck his shirt in from behind. She had stepped away at once on noticing Connor.

And he recalled how, a few years ago, she had sat with most of the family watching Connor win a boxing match as a late replacement on one of Tom’s shows.

When Connor joined them, she enthused that he resembled his dad boxing, and Connor noticed the sneer on Derek’s face.

And judging by Tom’s comment, Connor wondered if his elder cousin knew more than he did.

Indeed, Connor often had to ask his cousins what was happening because he was away with the The Chameleon Project.

And so he asked, “So you’re not dealing up there?”

“I think we’re beyond touching it ourselves, don’t you?” asked Tom rhetorically. “I sent one of the lads up there earlier today to divvy it out to one of Weisz’s guys—probably a butler of his.”

Luke said, “Aren’t we going to be show ponies to them? Like ‘Oohh, thems the crims, Percy. I should tuck in my pearls.’”

Tom said, “It’s more ‘new money’, mate. You met some of these before, anyway. Loads of them talk like us—well, maybe not like us, but not posh.”

“What about us being criminals?”

“We sell high-quality drugs to the people who can afford it or rehab. I am not ashamed of what we do,” said Tom.

Under Tom’s instruction, Connor pulled off the A61 onto a more minor road.

The squares of various green-shaded fields went by, interspersed with copses.

Connor said, “I always wonder what it would be like to live in the countryside like this.”

“Fuck me, you’d be bored to tears after a week or so,” said Luke. “There are only so many cows and picturesque sunrises you can appreciate.”

Connor found himself agreeing with his younger cousin. Still, he felt an almost nostalgic pleasure looking at the landscape.

After a while, Tom said, “That’s the badger, up on the left.”

“If that house was a lass, she’d be a worldie,” exclaimed Luke.

The manor’s peaks stood cordoned by a dizzying array of multi-coloured hedgerows.

It looked like several mansions of differing sizes bolted together. The white stone seemed unusually bright in the sunshine.

The Panamera stopped at intricately patterned black iron gates between sandstone pillars.

To his right, a circular stone lay embedded into a similar pillar with a glass eye at the centre.

Tom said, “Press the stone circle, Connor.”

He did so, mildly surprised to feel it sink in.

The intercom voice said, “Hello.”

Tom said, “Say, ‘You moron.’”

Had Luke asked him to say it, he wouldn’t have.

“You moron.”

The gates then slid open.

“A rich person’s funny, is that?” commented Luke.

“Why do you say that like you’re not rich?” asked Connor.

“Holy fuck,” exclaimed Tom, a rare excitement to his voice. “A 275 GTS Pininfarina.”

Connor’s eyes shifted to the forest green Ferrari, which looked to be from the sixties and almost like a stretched Porsche 911 from the eighties.

“Looks very nice,” said Connor.

“Be worth around a mil five that,” said Tom. “Fuck getting that scratched—I’d accept a ticket for parking in a disabled spot every time if I owned that.”

“You’re saying that is worth over twenty times this Porsche? What’s it upholstered in? Unicorn’s foreskin?” said Luke, triggering Connor’s burst of laughter.

As the Panamera trundled into the huge gravel car park, Tom said, “It’s a classic for more than one reason.”

Seemingly undeterred, the younger Ryder said, “I swear people just love shit cos it’s old and rare.”

Connor could tell Tom wanted to retort but must have thought better of it.

A man in a shiny grey, button-down uniform top and burgundy trousers with a matching undershirt waved them down.

He descended into the window space. “I will park the car for you, sir.”

The trio got out as the valet took the key.

6

The Boeing 777-200 touched down at Ben-Gurion Airport.

Bruce usually liked to make his own way into a country, but that might not be prudent, or possible, this time.

Still, he waited until the other passengers alighted before making his way off.

With his carry-on being the only possessions he brought, he made his way through the airport, which reminded him of a shopping centre in its layout.

Stepping outside, he thought the airport would not look out of place as a space station.

The Israeli summer heat licked at his skin with a tongue hotter and drier than the one he had left a handful of hours ago.

A hawkish-looking man of similar height and build to Bruce approached him. “Mister McQuillan, my name is Benny Iyasu. I am to be your escort.”

The phrase ‘I am to be your escort’ confirmed Iyasu’s identity.

Bruce nodded. “I appreciate Mister Nazzal’s hospitality.”

A black Mercedes-Benz S-Class sat like one of the airport’s pets.

McQuillan placed his black and gold retro leather ‘Head’ holdall and case in the Mercedes’s boot before sliding into the diamond-stitched cream leather of the back seat.

He had already estimated that the journey to Sarona should not take more than twenty-five minutes.

The pylon lines followed the Mercedes like spies as it hit Route 1.

He noted how flat the mix of greenery and industrial complex-filled land looked.

Despite no sirens, the other vehicles seemed to make way for the black S-Class.

After a few minutes, he could see Tel Aviv’s skyscrapers’ light grey, white and blue outline over the sandy plains.

As they entered the city, it gave the Glaswegian the impression of Barcelona but with a more technological, less artistic bent.

Bruce had thoroughly researched the essential aspects of his brief, so the modesty of the Shin Bet HQ wasn’t a complete surprise to him.

Though the central Shin Bet HQ was located near Yarkon Park, approximately three miles away, many of the higher intelligence decisions were made here in Ramat Aviv.

The curved complex looked no more than three floors or a high-ceilinged two.

Though gated, the security appeared comparable to that of a theme park, with a yellow tollbooth-looking box at the entrance.

The car park looked like a supermarket’s.

In comparison, MI5’s seven-floor, grey stone, ‘Imperial Neo-classic’ overlooking the Thames would have seemed positively Venetian.

However, the Scotsman knew the Shin Bet HQ’s appearance fit perfectly with their motto, Magen ve’lo Yera’eh—The unseen shield.

Despite this, he did not doubt their route had been under surveillance from at least a kilometre away.

He had also done his homework on the Shin Bet’s chief.

It hadn’t been lost on Bruce that David Nazzal’s career had somewhat mirrored his own. In the mid-eighties and early nineties, while Bruce served with the Parachute Regiment and the SAS, Nazzal served as an officer with roughly Israel’s equivalent in the Sayeret Matkal, despite its official remit being an intelligence gathering and surveillance unit.

Bruce’s intelligence on Nazzal’s career from the mid-to-late nineties became blurred with vagueness.

Though the official date of his joining Shin Bet as a field agent was unknown to them, Jaime had found legacy emails and snippets indicating the date to be 1994.

Though not in the habit of making assumptions, Bruce surmised he might have been seconded to Shin Bet from Sayeret Matkal for several years before permanently joining.

This would be a good sign of his competency, as the Sayeret Matkal wouldn’t have wanted to hand him over until their hand was fully forced.

Benny, carrying the holdall and Bruce the case, led them through the yellow gate with the occupant of the matching box asking him to state his name and remain still for a picture.

Once past, they made the short walk through a gravel courtyard, around the corner to steel doors.

Benny approached the panel at the side and submitted to both a fingerprint and retinal scan.

The doors steamed open, and the pair walked into a short, blue-lit corridor with mirroring steel doors at the other end.

This formed the beginnings of the actual security protocols he knew. The building’s wall would be armoured, layers deep.

He noticed the vents the size of bank cards at differing points in the corridor and didn’t doubt that some form of sedative agent could be pumped through them.

And he could guess that it wouldn’t just be eyeballs behind the screens on either side assessing him but backscatter X-ray and millimetre wave machines.

The far-end door opened, and the two men entered another corridor.

This looked just like any corporate firm.

A middle-aged woman with blonde hair flicked out just under her ears sat behind a charcoal desk.

Near to one of its corners sat an ornamental blue sphere with white grooves in the design of Shabak’s emblem.

To Bruce’s surprise, Nazzal appeared from the side door.

The former SAS soldier noticed that Nazzal’s appearance didn’t conform to the former snake eater archetype.

The short, bald Nazzal’s physique looked to have acquired significant padding since taking on a more sedentary role. Indeed, in the few photographs of the younger, military-serving Nazzal, Bruce got the impression of a man capable of a wolverine-like ferocity and strength.

Now, his striding over threatened to become a waddle.

“Shalom, Mister McQuillan. Glad to have you with us,” said Nazzal.

The two men shook hands—Grip still strong, thought McQuillan.

The man’s face wasn’t exactly smiley, but it didn’t convey any hostility either—more open than anything else.

“Thank you, Mister Nazzal.”

“Please, call me David,” said the Shabak chief. “Follow me.”

Benny trailed behind with McQuillan’s holdall.

A dark, burgundy brick-red covered the walls, highlighting the mounted gold Shin Bet emblem.

On the opposite wall hung two frames, one a brief history of the organisation in Hebrew and the other a collage of some of its previous directors.

The projector oversaw the conference table with an Israeli flag on either side. 

The bodyguard placed his holdall down.

Despite the brevity of Bruce’s glance at his bag, Nazzal asked, “Is something wrong?”

“Mildly surprised you didn’t have it taken away, that’s all.”

“I don’t think beginning with mistrust would benefit anyone.”

“And my chaperone?”

Nazzal gave him a hint of a smile. “Benny is a resource for you only, not us. You can dismiss him as and when you please.”

“I thought you’d be more insistent on his staying with me.”

“There was dissent on whether to assign you a protection detail—we accept you are a high-value individual. However, not only are you meant to be here on a ‘quiet’ basis, but given your background, we assumed you would be more than adept at looking after yourself. It was eventually decided to assign you a ‘guide’ who would take his orders from you for your time here. Tell him to fuck off if you’d like.”

The Scotsman noticed Nazzal’s speech and bearing seemed less packaged than his Mossad counterpart.

“Thank you.”

“However, Mister Iyasu knows some players you might be interested in, including me. And his geographical knowledge could be of use to you.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” said Bruce.

Nazzal nodded to Iyasu, who left the room.

“I have a list of my staff in hierarchal order. They have been briefed regarding the necessary promptness and transparency of any interviews you conduct with them.”

“Truthfully, I am surprised to be granted this level of access. Israeli Security Services have a reputation of being notoriously tight.”

“That reputation is now on shaky ground, considering what has happened. And I cannot risk an internal review. I have long known Ann Zurer and trust her as much as anyone in our business.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“And as we both know, she isn’t a woman best known for giving compliments.”

Bruce said, “Do you have the list currently?”

Nazzal pulled out a case with an SSD inside.

Bruce looked at him. “When will you be available for interview, David?”

The Shin Bet chief smiled. “I have cleared my schedule for the next two hours.”

Connor kept a smirk off his face as Daniel Weisz made a theatrical show of welcoming them.

The trio stood on sparkling black and white triangular flooring with apexes pointing towards cream archways leading into the mansion.

The other guests’ attention snapped to them as Weisz waltzed down one of the red leather spiral stairways with arms outstretched.

His white hair appeared almost blond beneath the lighting of crystal chandeliers, and his striped suit had a hypnotic effect.

“Thomas, Luke and Connor Ryder, my special guests of honour—apart from the dearest Jennifer and Katie.”

Though Connor had only met the accountant once, the difference between professional Weisz and party Weisz took him back a bit.

The Ryder clan’s money launderer greeted Tom first with a hug.

This amused Connor, as Weisz would normally consider a handshake sufficient. He did the same to Connor and finally to Luke, though he held it a little longer.

Tom asked him, “Are Katie and Jennifer ‘ere?”

“I messaged the driver ten minutes ago, as I expected them twenty ago. He said they were not ready.”

Luke said, “All the women I’ve been with are never on time when it comes to going out.”

Connor smiled inside at Luke’s subliminal confirmation of his heterosexuality.

Weisz beckoned a young curly-haired woman balancing a silver tray of champagne flutes.

Weisz said, “Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label Brut.”

“Fuck me, that’s two and a half thousand a bottle,” exclaimed Tom.

“Never had you down as a connoisseur, Tom,” said Connor.

“I had to approve the drinks list for your thirtieth,” retorted Tom. “I vetoed those bastards straight off.”

“I won’t take that personally.”

“Thanks for having us, Daniel,” said Tom. “Some party.”

“Thank you, Thomas,” said Daniel before he lowered his voice. “I must confess, I didn’t pay.”

“Who did?”

“You will discover that later.”

Tom asked, “Who owns the 275 GTS Pininfarina?”

“Ah, that belongs to Dev Khan. He and his brother are possibly the richest here today. Guess what industry.”

Connor answered, “Petrol stations.”

“That’s right, ‘Epison Fuel’. That Ferrari will be one of a fleet of weekend cars,” said Daniel. “I’ll introduce you to the brothers later.”

“Holy fuck, who are they?” exclaimed Luke, subtly gesturing to a gaggle of women who, to Connor, looked Indian, less likely Pakistani, or a mixture of both.

The sheen of their black hair flowed with elaborately coloured dresses.

“That, my friends, is the M-Company dance troupe from Sri Lanka. They will perform later in the large hallway.”

Connor now guessed the girls to be Christian Tamils, hence his initial supposition of their ethnicity.

“Think they are GPMGs, Connor? Your eyes are a bit better than mine.”

“GPMGs?” asked Daniel.

“General Purpose Machine Guns that have been described as ‘Good at range but horrific up close’,” answered Connor. “It’s used to describe women who might look alluring at a distance but not so much up close. Obviously by misogynistic types like my cousin.”

“Eh? You taught it to me.”

Daniel said, “There are plenty of attractive women here, gentlemen, and more than enough rooms.”

“Fuck me,” Luke exclaimed quietly. “I’ll be checking for cameras and microphones—you’re not going to ‘Epstein’ me.”

Tom smiled, Connor a little more so and Daniel a little less so, before he said, “I’d have plenty of ammunition if I wanted to blackmail you—and vice versa.”

“Maybe you just want to watch me in action,” said Luke, slapping Daniel in the chest with the back of his hand for emphasis.

A sly smile played on Daniel’s lips as he said, “I believe watching through a screen sanitises the experience.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” said Luke.

“Food will be served in the dining room in half an hour, so Jennifer and Katie better hurry,” said Daniel. “Come, there is time to give you the tour.”

Instinctively, Connor’s eyes scanned, and he began mentally noting and memorising people’s faces, mannerisms and potential escape routes.

It wasn’t lost on him that the last time the three of them attended a party hosted by someone outside of the family, there had been a shootout that almost paralysed Tom.

One of the things he noticed was the unusual ceiling height of the corridors and rooms.

They walked through a continuously changing kaleidoscope of aromas—floral, oakwood moss, aquatic and citrus perfumes and aftershaves, blended with the champagne and cigar tobacco.

Connor realised then that this was the first ‘wealthy elite’ party he had attended in England.

He had been a guest at a few of his now-deceased ‘father in crime’ Raymond Van Der Saar’s parties—and they had been lavish.

But this was the first time he’d attended one where all the guests had mega money and in his home country.

The demographic surprised Connor. He had the notion it might be almost exclusively middle-aged white men and younger women, and though heavy with these two groups, there were plenty of older women and younger men of different ethnicities.

No signs of debauchery yet, but Connor surmised that came after the meal.

Luke asked, “Daniel, where’s our… gifts to the party.”

The younger Ryder referred to the drugs Tom had couriered up—specifically NoLo, as they wanted a new spate of regular customers after this event.

“They’ll be put out in some of the upstairs rooms and the guests quietly informed—after dinner, I did not want to shackle someone sober with someone high throughout six courses.”

Connor watched the micro-expressions on the guests’ faces as Daniel consistently introduced the trio—where he had expected an air of superiority, all he could see was intrigue.

And it occurred to him that Daniel hadn’t told them the real reason behind the party; perhaps Weisz could cajole these people on a whim? Connor didn’t think it likely, though.

They entered a cylindrical library where Connor guessed the books acted more like ornaments than reading material.

A staircase with glass balustrading curved around an enormous bonsai struggling from its ceramic pot.

Several clusters of people inhabited the space, and Weisz made a beeline for one with the Ryder cousins in tow.

“Ah, Dev, people I want to introduce you to.”

An open-collared, suited man of Indian heritage turned from his female companion to face them.

His coiffured hair slid into a well-trimmed beard.

“Hello, Daniel,” said Dev, who Connor guessed was not much older than himself.

“Dev, these are the Ryder brothers from Leeds.”

Connor kept the frown off his forehead—Tom, Luke and himself were cousins.

“So, you’re the Ryders. Please do not be offended, but you’re all smaller but more… stylish… than I’d pictured.”

Tom said, “I don’t think any of us are offended by that comment.”

“Tom was admiring your car, Dev,” said Weisz before looking across the room at one of his housing staff, who gestured for his attention.

Weisz said, “Excuse me, gentlemen, I believe the esteemed guests have arrived.”

The accountant sauntered off, and Dev turned his attention to Tom to say, “Most men buy cars like that as a status symbol. They don’t appreciate not only how beautiful it is but also how special it is to drive on a sunny day, with the top down, on the right country road. I’ve put hundreds of miles on that Ferrari.”

Luke snorted. “You two will get on like an orphanage on fire.”

“Really?” asked Dev.

“Talking cars and their driving experiences to Tom is like talking to Stephen Hawking about docile dwarves,” said Connor.

Dev leant back before bursting into laughter.

“I heard you were funny men,” said the billionaire.

He then asked Tom, “What are you driving at the moment?”

“My fun car at the minute is a GR-86. I had it supercharged, but its acceleration won’t make you wet yourself or ‘owt. It’s more the handling on the country roads.”

“Yes,” said Dev eagerly. “I have heard—”

The voice of Katie Ryder, seemingly unperturbed by the high society around them, called out from across the room.

“Connor, Luke.”

The willowy Kate strode across, with her dark hair threatening to bounce off the bare shoulder of her green, single-strap dress.

Connor caught the eyes of more than one of the men as she threw her arms enthusiastically around him and pressed herself into him.

Some of the family had attempted to tease him regarding the twenty-six-year-old Katie’s apparent affection for him.

However, he guessed they still considered it a girl’s infatuation despite her age. He hadn’t told them that in recent times, she had become increasingly brazen with her hand and lip placement while greeting or bidding him farewell in the absence of the other family members or if she thought eyes were averted.

Connor, so far, had just given her an admonishing raise of the eyebrows as her tactility towards him had been, for now, ambiguous.

She broke away and gave Tom and Luke a shorter, more standoffish hug.

His Aunt Jennifer appeared.

All three male cousins turned their attention to her.

Now closer to fifty than forty, his married-in aunt could still turn heads. Connor thought that her marching up a couple of dress sizes from her youth enhanced her sexiness in the weight it had added to her tits and ass.

The pearl-coloured, all-in-one, knee-length dress belted in the centre highlighted both.

“Jesus, Connor,” she said, with a pronounced West Yorkshire accent. “Yer get more handsome every time I see yer.”

As she hugged him, he grinned at Luke—the best-looking man in the family by consensus, who merely grinned back.

She must have noticed, as she exclaimed, “Now then, don’t you be getting jealous. You’re a bit of a pretty boy, that’s all.”

She hugged them all in turn and stood beside Katie; with both sporting the same hair colour and style, Connor knew they’d be mistaken as mother and daughter.

Indeed, Dev Khan seemed taken by the feminine duo as he enthusiastically greeted them, showing Jennifer a touch more attention despite his female companion shooting glances.

After a few minutes, Weisz climbed a few steps, and as some of the guests turned their attention to him, he announced, “Please join me in the dining room. There are place names. You can rearrange after the first of six courses.”

Connor began to realise that the front of the property had acted as a mirage to the property’s actual dimensions—like the false summits of the Dolomite Mountain range.

And it dawned on him that this couldn’t be Weisz’s residence—as successful as the accountant was, Connor doubted his budget could stretch to purchasing and upkeep a property this size.

It took a while for all the guests to find their seats.

Staff in waistcoats and bow ties buzzed around, taking drink orders.

Though his name lay on the same teak table as the rest of his family members, Connor sat on his velveteen-backed chair on the other side with three strangers.

Due to the table’s width, Connor knew he’d have to shout to be heard by his cousins and aunt.

Connor calculated a hundred and three guests, not including Weisz. He counted four men with the physical attributes to be dangerous in a fight but without the alert mannerisms to back them up.

He guessed that people of extreme wealth wouldn’t ever descend to something as Neanderthal as physical fighting—social assassination, corporate espionage and the courts maybe, but not fist to face.

Weisz had sat him between a lady and gentleman in their fifties. He guessed by the woman’s haughty accent that she derived from the Sussex area. Her grey-laced blonde hair wisped to her throat, and she smiled before turning to a guest to her right.

The man to his left said, “I quite enjoy this part of the party—watching the social awkwardness of the guests slowly melt.”

Connor realised that the man’s dark blue, woollen shirt fitted him like it was made for him, because it had been.

The voice had a hint of an accent he guessed to be southern Irish.

The full, white hair looked as soft as cat fur, with an abnormally large forehead separating it from dark eyebrows. The crow’s feet creased the brown eyes as he smiled, showing whitened teeth.

A cream-shirted blonde woman placed their drinks in front of them.

Connor smiled. “Alcohol helps.”

“You like a drink?” he said, pointing to Connor’s.

At that moment, Connor could see enough of the rose gold and silvery grey watch to recognise it and felt something click in his head.

“Not to excess. I like its gentle hold, not tight grip.”

As if blessed with clairvoyance, he said, “You don’t like to feel vulnerable.”

“I don’t want to be in a state where if something happens, I leave the people I care about vulnerable.”

The older man held his gaze. “I know exactly what you mean, Mister Reed.”

The sound of his name jolted him, but he didn’t show it. He offered his hand. “What’s your name?”

“Eric Connolly,” he said, taking his hand in a grip as soft as his hair.

“So, you’re the éminence grise behind the Zarrella hotel chain?”

Connolly withdrew his hand with a smirk.

“I certainly am.”

“How do you know my name?”

“You know how.”

The waiting staff served them their first-course appetisers; both men had chosen the pancetta crisps with goat cheese and pear.

“I am sorry for your loss.”

When their war raged with the O’Neils, the Franklin Organised Crime Group had put out a blanket warning against any tradesmen doing any work for their hated rivals.

Geoffrey Connolly had been a plumber who ignored this warning, leading to not only his death but his baby daughter being shot in the leg.

The pair ate as they talked.

“We weren’t very close. I had a falling out with my brother a long time ago. I was close to my nephew as a boy. Years ago, Geoff found out what his father was and reached out to me. Always, always refused any offer of money or for me to treat him and the family to a holiday. One of the most honest and straight men I knew—the apple can fall and roll far from the tree.”

“Will she walk properly?”

“I will make sure.”

Connor nodded and said, “So you threw this party just to engineer a chat with me?”

“Well…” Eric smiled. “Daniel told me you had to miss part of your thirtieth.”

Connor kept his anger towards Daniel telling an outsider his business off his face. He would address it with him later.

“Did he say why?”

“No, he didn’t,” he said. “And do not be troubled. Only you, Daniel and I know it’s your party.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Besides, networking is a real thing,” said Eric. “Something you must know as you climb this class ladder.”

“You mean fiscal ladder?”

Eric guffawed. “Social connections, an education, political clout can all be bought—and class is no different.”

“Mohammed al-Fayed couldn’t pay himself up the social class system?”

Eric looked at him. “His barring from entry had more to do with his need to be seen as someone special instead of just allowing people to find out he was.”

“The air of mystery,” agreed Connor. “Like how social media has destroyed ‘The Movie Star’.”

“That’s correct.”

“Thank you for the wisdom,” said Connor sincerely. “And the party, we appreciate it.”

“We both know this evening is the least I can do for you.”

“The FOC were looking to target your hotels after they murdered your nephew. You know this, don’t you?”

The Irishman nodded. “I heard rumours.”

Seeing little point in subterfuge, he said, “And we agree my arrival in Marbella coincided with Mister Franklin’s untimely—or timely from your point of view—death.”

“We do.”

“Then we agree that I am a lucky charm to your business—pardon the Irish pun.”

“We could see it like that, yes.”

The white cuffed hands replaced their empty plates with their soups: a chestnut fennel for Connor, who chose it because he’d not had it before, and chilled cucumber for Eric.

“The Zarrella hotel chain stated in its annual shareholders address its wish to diversify into bed and breakfasts and even hostels, specifically into ‘hostile zones’ to appeal to the companies looking to send out contractors to war, or at least pre-war zones.”

“You have done your homework.”

“But the address failed to mention that you have already been purchasing such establishments under shell corporations and dummy companies.”

Connor saw Eric fail to keep the surprise off his face before regaining his composure with, “How did you come by that information?”

Connor ignored him, saying, “I do not ever want to have to pay to stay in one of your hotels, BnBs, or hotels again.”

“We could work something out.”

“And I do not want any record of my being there to be kept.”

“That might prove a little trickier.”

“It’s always handy for a person like you to have a friend like me.”

“Indeed, I imagine it could be.” He smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“I would appreciate that.”

The two men fell into easy conversation, first regarding al-Fayed’s assertion that the British Security Services had Princess Diana, and his son, assassinated, which then led to a discussion regarding UFOs.

“They are not called UFOs now,” said Eric, more animated. “They are called unidentified aerial phenomena—UAPs. Sightings have increased dramatically recently.”

Connor did not wish to correct the man that it meant ‘unidentified anomalous phenomena’.

Instead, he shrugged and said, “Well, drones are more common now. Either that or the Decepticons are searching for the AllSpark.”

“Do you know who Baba Vanga was?”

“The Bulgarian lady who claims to have seen the future?”

“Jesus, is there anything you don’t know?”

Connor smiled. “My cousins refer to me as one of the nerds of the family.”

“Well, she predicted World War II, the Chernobyl disaster, the Kursk submarine disaster, September Eleventh, and she says they’ll make contact next year.”

Connor argued against her alleged abilities and found himself enjoying the conversation.

Eventually, after all the courses had been consumed and people had begun to leave the tables, Connor re-joined Tom in one of the lounge rooms.

A shoal of men seemed to be in mild competition to entertain Jennifer and Katie, who were close to a fire. It amused Connor to see his aunt’s control over them.

“Where’s Luke?” he asked.

His elder cousin merely directed his thumb towards the adjoining room. Connor adjusted his position to look in and see his younger cousin holding court to members of the dance troupe.

Connor shook his head with a smile.

Tom asked, “Who was that guy you were talking to?”

When Connor told him, Tom gave a low whistle and said, “Was that watch what I thought it was?”

“Yeah,” said Connor. “Well over a million nicker of Patek Philippe swinging from his wrist.”

Luke appeared and asked, “Whose wrist? Over a million?”

“Eric Connelly, the bloke they sat me beside.”

“‘Ere, he wants to splurge some of that money on a forehead reduction—bet the fuckin’ sweat dries before it reaches his eyes!”

The trio cracked laughing, drawing the attention of the room.

When it subsided, Connor asked, “How come you’re not in there with the Sri Lankan birds?”

“Came out for my single cousin to play wingman, didn’t I?” said Luke expectantly.

Connor thought of Grace, looked at his cousin and said, “It’s alright, mate. It’ll be more for you.”

“Mate, I am telling you, they are thirsting for some Yorkshire beef,” said Luke, emphasising the ‘beef’ and comically flexing a bicep while biting his lower lip.

Connor laughed. “I’ll put in a shift for half an hour, bigging you up, and then you’re on your own.”

7

Bruce’s face burst from the water to violently suck for oxygen.

His heart pounded in his ears, and he felt the sting of disappointment that he hadn’t made the halfway line of his second length of the Olympic swimming pool.

He remembered completing ‘the double’ several times in his forties.

Bruce finished the rest of his lengths of the rooftop pool in one of Tel Aviv’s best hotels.

Now in his mid-fifties, swimming had been the mode of exercise least aggravating to joints hammered by decades of heavy tabbing, judo and the rigours of black operations.

He remembered as a Tom paratrooper looking with distaste at some of the ‘old ‘n’ bold’ who had been placed in the stores department and how they would let themselves go.

His attitude had softened, though not disappeared, as he entered middle age—but he had realised long ago that life was a series of trade-offs.

He remembered speaking to an estate agent who explained to him the impossibility of the perfect house. It’d be either a great house in a rough area or a bad one in an ideal location. It’d be costly if it’s a fabulous house in an excellent area.

Either stare your mortality in the face by continually witnessing what you can no longer do or deny it by streamlining your descent into decay.

He hadn’t taken notes or recorded during his interview with David Nazzal—one, he didn’t need to; memory training methodologies such as mnemonics, chunking and memory palaces had been driven into him since the early nineties and now came as naturally as verbal tics.

He knew that most of the global population were quasi-cyborgs, including himself, to a degree.

Still, he remembered being dismayed that his youngest niece needed a SatNav to get to places she had been to several times before.

The Shin Bet chief had been mostly forthcoming in his answers.

Bruce had been tempted to put his hints of reticence down to the old habits of a master spy.

Despite Nazzal’s apparent openness, Bruce knew to read between the lines.

He sensed that the domestic security boss feared a leak within the Arab department responsible for counterterrorism within Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Not in what he said but in what he didn’t say, and there was a slight inflexion in his voice when answering certain questions.

He got out of the pool, dried and made his way to his room.

He would be preparing for his interview with Yossi Bernea, the head of Shin Bet’s Arab department.

Connor awoke with saliva stuck from his mouth to his cheek in the soft but supportive embrace of the plush golden pyramid bed.

He rolled, wiped his mouth and sat up to admire the forest green and white of the room.

A faint tinge of cherry blossom floated.

When Luke informed them that he was “staying the night ‘ere”, Katie asked for a lift back to Leeds. And she looked mildly annoyed when Connor told her it was Tom’s car and he’d be driving back. Doubly so when he accepted his Aunt Jennifer’s offer of one of her spare rooms.

Connor had surreptitiously checked the value of this three-bedroom detached house in Harrogate’s HG1 postcode and saw that it was worth over half a million.

He knew he must have drunk a little more than he should have because he was not inclined to carry out his usual morning routine of exercises or studying.

He felt a dim anxiety that maybe a certain softness had begun to descend on him.

He quelled it, reminding himself that he hardly drank alcohol and that it had only been a few weeks since he had taken amusement in burning alive a mafia crime lord who had attempted to condemn to death well over half of all Canada’s addicts.

He thought about the Sri Lankan dancer who had taken an interest in him during his manful ‘wingmanship’ for Luke.

He knew he’d regret turning her down.

One of Connor’s loose philosophies had been the adage, “I’d rather regret something I’ve done than something I haven’t.”

However, he believed that his cousins, Tom at least, suspected him of seeing Grace. He didn’t want to disrespect her, nor did he want his eldest cousin to think less of him.

A gentle knock at the door preceded Jennifer’s calling through it. “You awake, Connor?”

“Yep.”

“You decent?”

“Of course. I didn’t want to scare the horses.”

She came in dressed in a blue and gold terry cotton dressing gown. She looked fresh-faced with the makeup removed from her washed face.

His aunt unfurled a similar dressing gown before throwing it on the bed.

“Wrap yourself in that and come down. I am making full breakfast,” she said. “You’re not a vegan, are you?”

“No, but no tomatoes,” he said. “And why do I get the pink and yellow one?”

“Cos this is my favourite one,” she said, already leaving.

Connor got out of bed and pondered where to crank out some pistol squats. He decided against it and instead sunk into the luxury of the cotton gown.

He went down the cloudy-carpeted staircase, following the cooked breakfast smell into the sunlit kitchen of cream, salmon pink and bourbon oak.

Connor slid into the upholstered oatmeal chair at the round table as Jennifer laid out the food items buffet-style.

They assembled their breakfasts and began to eat.

“Thanks for this, Jennifer.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Nice to cook for a man who appreciates it.”

“What, your new fella doesn’t like your cooking? Swedes not enjoy a cooked breakfast? Where is he, anyway?”

“I’ve had to change a few things, that’s all,” she said in mock defensiveness. “He’s visiting his mum back home.”

“You must like him?”

“He’s a lovely guy who looks after me. What you consider boring as a young girl, you see as tranquillity when you get to my age.”

Connor took a breath and said, “Jenny, I didn’t kill Derek.”

“It doesn’t—”

“No,” he said forcefully. “There are not many consequences of telling the truth I can’t face, and I am telling you I didn’t.”

She met his eyes. “OK, I believe you.”

They ate and drank for a few moments before Jennifer said, “I am a little surprised you stayed over—you had more than one twirlie after you last night.”

“I have taken a vow of abstinence. Trying to enhance my inner chi.”

She smirked. “I see you’re managing to sidestep our Katie’s advances.”

Connor thought of playing ignorant but said, “Don’t suppose you could tell her one of the possible consequences is a child who’ll never have to pay for parking as an adult?”

Jennifer’s smile dimmed as she said, “Infatuation can be blinding.”

Connor changed the subject. “Some place this, Jennifer.”

“Derek used to come home on the regular and throw cash at me. I think he thought that made up for all the bad behaviour over the years. I opened an index fund and put most into that.”

“Did the money get you to stay?”

“Partly. Guilt, too.”

Connor didn’t want to press her, saying, “It must have been good in the beginning?”

“Oh, it was. Leeds was great for a night out back in the nineties. Almost every weekend, it would be Derek, me, Michael, Joanne, Lee and later with Steph, Ryan and eventually Cathy.”

“My dad not come out?”

“He was in Armley at first, wasn’t he?” she said, sipping her coffee from a large black ceramic mug. “Even when he got out, I didn’t really see him out at first—too busy running things, cos although the lads got respect wherever they went in Leeds, it was different with Greg. He was like a king, but I reckoned it made him uncomfortable. At least in the beginning.”

“How did you know if you didn’t see him out?”

“First time I saw him was when he came into ‘The Scarborough Taps’—that’s what they called The Scarborough Hotel back then. It was a pub in the city where they held Lee’s twenty-first birthday party. You could see how the locals were with Greg. Your Grandad Frank loved him like mad, too—even if he tried not to make a show of it. But I always remember the first proper night out he was there.”

Connor placed his knife and fork across his now empty plate and said, “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

Her mouth curved up. “Well, we’d all been to one of the only pubs with Sky Sports and a big screen—one that the lads had a silent stake in—to see Leeds Rhinos get booted out of the Silk Cut Challenge Cup by Bradford Bulls. Anyway, we decided to head into town, and Michael geed up Greg to come out, and we went to a few pubs and ended up at Planet Earth, a cheap but cheerful nightclub with a revolving dancefloor.”

“Oh yeah,” said Connor. “Became Bondi Beach Bar. I remember Tom getting me in when I was sixteen-seventeen.”

“That’s the one,” she said, eyes lighting up. “Anyway, I was dancing with Joanne on the revolving dancefloor. Derek had gone to the toilet, and the others were on the balcony above the stage. You had to climb this wooden ladder to get up there—be a health and safety ‘no no’ now. And Greg was at the bar getting some drinks, I think.”

Connor sipped his coffee, already engrossed in the story.

His aunt continued, “This group of lads sidle close, and one of them tries it on. No harm done, but I say I am with someone. He wasn’t bothered as all five of ‘em were units, Connor. He says, ‘Well, he isn’t ‘ere, is he?’ Joanne gives him a bit of a mouthful, and they have a go back. So, I get my fags out my handbag and tell Joanne we’ll go cos I see Derek coming back from the toilets, and I didn’t want anything to happen.”

She paused, and Connor said, “Go on—I am into it now.”

“One of these fuckin’ pricks snatches my fags and holds them above his head. Out of nowhere, your dad is there—and he lays both the bloke and ‘is mate out before I even know what’s happening. Sweeps his arm back to get Jo and me out the way. The dancefloor opens up with girls screaming, and your dad is fighting with the other three. Knocks out another, but the other two manage to get hold of Greg and are battering ‘im a bit. The lads were scrambling to try and make it down from the balcony. Anyway, the bouncers steam in and pull them off your dad. Greg raises his hands, and one of the bouncers says something to the other cos they don’t touch him. Instead, Greg leans down, picks up my pack of ciggies, hands ‘em to me, winks and says, ‘These are bad for people’s health, you know.’”

Connor’s face split into a grin of a son’s pride, “Did he say that?”

“Yeah, he did. You imagine how I felt as a girl towards him after that.”

Connor looked at her momentarily before asking, “What was Derek doing when all this was happening? You said he came back from the toilet.”

Jennifer’s face hinted at a sneer. “He fuckin’ shat himself, Connor. Told everyone that he couldn’t get through the crowd and that the bouncers got him, but I saw—he just stood there in shock.”

“How did he end up running the family after my dad went if he was such a pussy?”

She shrugged. “He started the weights and eventually the steroids—made him braver, maybe. You’ll have to ask them.”

Connor felt his heart pounding. Just ask her. Might be your last chance.

“Look, this is none of my business. But did you have an affair with my dad?”

A sadness washed over her face. “Your dad wasn’t to blame, Connor. I threw myself at him—more than once. Managed to catch him at a vulnerable moment one night. But I could never compete with your mother.”

Connor slowly nodded. “Think Derek knew?”

“He never said but probably suspected. I’ll tell you this for free: To stay with someone you don’t love is just as deceitful as adultery—so I was doubly guilty.”

8

Bruce strolled down the cobbled street of the market town with the fans purring above the shops and food stalls.

He dismissed Benny for a few hours, as Nazzal had insisted he could, before walking the three miles from his hotel to this market.

The walk not only gave him the time to stretch his legs but allowed him to conduct counter-surveillance.

Instinctively, his brain made notes of people’s most distinctive features—POW collarbones, Egyptian-Humphrey Bogart, double chin. If he saw the same features again after a certain time or having travelled a certain distance, it could be the first click in confirming a shadow.

That said, the international consensus on covert surveillance teams decreed that the ‘personnel on the ground’ needed to be a minimum of twelve, not including the support elements.

So, if tracked by an entire team, it would be unlikely to see the same individual again—at least not in the same clothes and accessories.

Graffiti splashed the walls with varying degrees of artistry as his ears picked up the sound of a melodic guitar being played.

He reached the start of the bustling market and ducked into a shop selling fruit and smoothies.

Immediately, the bespectacled man with white tufts of hair plastered to the side of his head asked, “What are you looking for?”

“I am just browsing your smoothie menu.”

“Ahh, how long have you been in Israel?”

“A few days.”

“A stranger in a strange land that has strange aliments. You need this.”

The man turned his back as he busied himself, creating a concoction that the Scotsman hadn’t asked for.

The shopkeeper turned with a clear, plastic beaker filled with a yellow liquid.

“What’s in it?”

“Turmeric, ginger, cayenne pepper and oil.”

Bruce raised the beaker. “L’chaim.”

“Wait,” scolded the keeper, producing a bottle with a skull logo and the brand ‘Dunderhead’ on it.

“You are not a recovering alcoholic, are you?”

When Bruce shook his head, the shopkeeper poured him a splash of the dark rum.

He downed the spice-laced tonic.

“Thank you,” said Bruce sincerely. “How much do I owe you?”

The shopkeeper waved his hand. “You had medicine, not a beverage. It is free.”

Bruce smiled and held his protest on seeing the futility of it. And he didn’t want to deny the man his future karmic reward.

“Toda raba.” ‘Thank you very much.’

As Bruce left, though he didn’t discount the placebo effect, he felt the billowing of energy smoke within.

He spotted him again—the first time had been shortly after he left the hotel.

At this distance, he reminded Bruce of a picture he had seen of a young Humphrey Bogart, except with a trimmed beard—dark, swept-back hair, strong features on a vertically stretched face, and squared-off chin.

Now closer, he snapshotted the brown eyes and judged them to be languidly alert—though one looked offset.

Bruce slid out his phone, tapped the screen and performed a map study.

He strode away at a relaxed pace, his eyes looking for other shadows.

Because he had seen the man twice within a short space of time, he discounted a team.

If Shin Bet or Mossad put such a team on him, he would not have spotted him so quickly.

And he couldn’t discount that they had.

If he confronted this individual in the open, then any team watching might also have questions for the said individual.

Ibrahim—’Ibra’—Haddad stroked his trimmed black beard, watching the tall man’s interaction with the shopkeeper. He had followed the Britisher since the hotel.

He hadn’t seen any Israeli security tails but lamented he might not, even if they were present.

Unsure whether it was just his imagination, he felt more suspicion in people as he walked the streets.

Ibrahim, an Arab-Israeli who, despite having converted to Judaism, had married his Israeli-Jewish wife in Cyprus so as to avoid their wedding being disrupted by Lehava—a Jewish supremacy group that opposed Jewish assimilation and intermarriage between Jews and Arabs.

He hated the harassment she had endured from the right-wing Zionists in the city, and his proud nature would have welcomed the conflict, but he had to keep a low profile.

She’d had to endure persecution ever since the marriage, but it had reached fever pitch in the wake of the attacks.

Two weeks ago, he saw the red paint mark on their home before going to work.

The irony was not lost on him; in 1930s Germany, Jewish businesses and homes were marked with the Star of David.

He liked the view as the sun began to sink—its blood shimmer highlighting the beauty and pain of the city.

He ignored it and focused on reaching the Scotsman, away from prying eyes, who now turned into the side street just past the Edwards Bar.

His commander had told Ibrahim that despite his skill set, it would be incredibly difficult to track Bruce McQuillan for any discernible length of time without his being aware of it.

Indeed, his commander said it would be in Ibra’s interest that the Brit have some forewarning before he made contact.

Ibrahim quickened his pace—over a decade and a half younger than McQuillan, and he knew these streets like the lines on his hand.

He rounded the corner and silently cursed, realising his target must have entered ‘The Waiter’, an underground bar, the entrance to which lay fifteen paces up on the right, past three stone archways.

Ibrahim braced himself to buy a soft drink in the establishment as inconspicuously as he could.

Just as he began to round the railings to proceed down the stairs, he anticipated the voice behind him a fraction of a second before it spoke.

“Slow down, then stop five steps down.”

Ibrahim did so.

“Turn around, slowly.”

Ibrahim knew what was coming.

Indeed, his suspicion had been correct. On turning, the Scotsman’s phone clicked a picture of his face.

“What’s your number?” asked the man who stood almost half a foot taller.

“What?”

“You want to meet me, for what I don’t know, but we can’t do it here, so tell me your number, and we can arrange that. Or I can show certain people the picture.”

Ibrahim relented and did so.

The Scotsman said, “Go down and get yourself a drink. Don’t let me see you again today.”

Ibrahim turned and made his way down to the bar.

Ciara felt her nerves swirl as she sat on the cream sofa outside the heavy, polished oak door.

If this reception had been much larger, she thought it could be mistaken for a gallery in an art museum.

Behind the oversized desk, the iron-haired woman with horn-rimmed glasses answered the low trill of the phone.

“He will see you now,” she said in British broadcasting English.

Ciara stood, smoothing the imaginary wrinkles from her dark blue pantsuit.

She opened the door to find two men standing.

At the head of the huge oak desk, Miles Parker did not lack broadness in his towering height and reminded her of a more imposing animated version of Lex Luther.

“Miss Robson, good to finally meet you,” he said.

He even sounds like a dastardly English villain, she thought.

“Thank you, sir.”

“I believe you have met Mister O’Hara.”

The SIS chief gestured to the man of average height, standing from the seat at the right corner closest to her.

Another empty seat stood parallel to it in the left corner.

She nodded. “Briefly. We have been present at a few of the same interservice meetings.”

Ciara suspected she knew more about O’Hara than either man might have expected.

And Bruce had said of O’Hara, “Now that Parker knows he can’t convince me to succeed him as head of SIS, if he has any sense, he’ll recommend Kevin O’Hara.”

Not long past fifty, O’Hara had a reputation of being one of the more talented SIS operation chiefs, establishing this in the Middle East before quelling dissident uprisings in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to maintain the peace.

Though it was not formally announced, Ciara knew O’Hara’s AO had been moved to Russia.

O’Hara’s dark, grey-peppered hair seemed unable to decide whether to be well-groomed or shaggy.

A lined suit jacket had thrown itself over an open-collared, pink-tinted shirt tucked into comfortable-looking jeans.

O’Hara proffered his hand, and they shook.

“Good to see you again,” he said.

In their previous meetings, Ciara had noticed that O’Hara’s face often seemed to set into the smile that strangers give one another on a park walk.

“You too.”

Parker’s gravelly tones implored them, “Let’s all take a seat.”

When she did so, she saw a portrait hanging over the door. It looked to her like some eighteenth-century officer dying in the arms of his men amidst a naval battle.

Parker gestured to it and asked, “Do you know what that depicts?”

Ciara made an educated guess, “The death of Lord Nelson?”

“Indeed it is,” he said, sounding vaguely impressed. “Shot on the deck of HMS Victory whilst inspiring his men to Britain’s most important naval victory. The picture is an idealisation, I grant you. People often lamented how heroes like that don’t exist—but we know that assumption is a fallacy, don’t we?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, Mister O’Hara wanted to bring something to your attention.”

She diverted her attention to O’Hara, who said, “The following recording is a conversation between an asset of ours and Petr Fradkov. He’s the—”

“—Deputy Head of the Middle Eastern Department of Political Intelligence, Directorate PR.”

Ciara knew that, in most cases, it would be best not to reveal how much she knew about anything.

However, she needed Parker to be convinced of her competency if she were to be afforded the same type of support as her predecessor.

O’Hara’s eyebrows briefly popped up. “That’s correct. The word around town is that Fradkov’s political skill saw to Alexey Orlov’s sudden retirement.”

“And his own ascension to his current position.”

“That’s right,” said O’Hara. “This is a translation from Russian, so the AI voice and some of the wording will sometimes sound unnatural. The first voice is Fradkov.”

She nodded, and he placed what looked like a digital dictation recorder on the desk and clicked.

“The United States political system is set so the left-hand fork refuses to hold the steak for the right-hand knife to cut.”

“I would counsel caution. The opposition party might delay the passing of the aid package, but vetoing it is another matter.”

“We have plans to start events where Washington must divert funds. No country has unlimited money.”

“Are we talking of funding HAMAS to fight back against Israel?”

“The scope of conflict needs to be much bigger than that. Large enough to involve Iran. And if Iran is invaded, China will find distaste in that.”

“Something the Middle Eastern Jews know. Which is why they have not as yet.”

“We are to send a package to Tel Aviv. It will be covered in Iranian wrapping paper. Once it is unwrapped, the Knesset will have no choice. Now, let us end the subject.”

O’Hara clicked off the device.

He asked her, “What would you gather from that?”

Ciara said, “My initial hope would have been suicide bombers. But given what they are attempting to achieve, I am going to have to say a weapon of mass destruction.”

She caught Parker’s glance towards O’Hara, who said, “That is our assessment also.”

Parker asked her, “What’s your assessment of the theory that the Russians had a hand in the October seventh attacks?”

“The theory has validity,” said Ciara. “The Patriot missile defence system is proving effective for the Ukrainians. The more drone strikes on Israel in retaliation for their reprisal attacks on Gaza, the more demand there will be for them. And what is the US more invested in? Their Jewish foothold in the Middle East? Or, as some US Republicans see it, a corrupt eastern-bloc nation run by a former comedian?”

O’Hara said, “I agree that it is not an outlandish assessment but one we can’t substantiate. But if a weapon of mass destruction is used on Israeli soil, the whole of the Middle East and its various allies will be plunged into a very hot, very kinetic war.”

“Can you warn the Israelis?”

“The new protocol within the Western intelligence agencies is that single pieces must be corroborated by an independent.  We have run the suggestion through the GCHQ and NSA sharing initiative. They haven’t had any hits.”

“But you have the original recording.”

“Which we can’t pass on.”

“In case it compromises the asset.”

“That’s correct. It has long been suspected that the Russians have at least one mole within the highest echelons of the Israeli Security Services and—or—government.”

“What do you need from me?”

She watched O’Hara’s chest rise and fall. “We believe, if you’re right about the package, its route will be through the Caucasus. I am mortally embarrassed to admit this, but we do not have any truly reliable assets within the region.”

Ciara understood—a handful of years ago, Connor, and then herself, managed to infiltrate Crimea to foil a plot to ignite a global Islamic Jihad against the Russian Federation.

And O’Hara’s word had struck a chord within her—Bruce already knew that Connor’s next focus should be around that area. But he hadn’t told O’Hara despite championing his potential ascension to be the next SIS chief.

She straightened her posture and said, “I haven’t any either—but that’s not to say I couldn’t place one.”

He stood, as did Parker and herself.

O’Hara shook her hand. “I’d appreciate that.”

When Parker did the same, he said, “Godspeed, Miss Robson.”

9

Connor knocked on the African blackwood door.

The feminine voice sounded through it, “Who is it?”

Connor smiled—she had opened the electric gate for him to drive into the courtyard, so she knew it was him.

Yesterday, he left his Aunt Jennifer’s after promising to visit her in Sweden. When he returned, he attended the wrestling class at the MMA gym in Morley before calling it a night after an hour’s study of the current Ukraine-Russian conflict.

This morning, he had arisen early to put the rounds down on his state-of-the-art computerised shooting range beneath his house, so technologically advanced it could rival any in the world.

The weapons he requested were made to the same specifications as their real-firing counterparts, including the noise, recoil and even average stoppage rate.

Darren O’Reilly, the near billionaire CEO of Verbatim Cyber Securities, had it designed, built and installed for him in his continuing allegiance to Bruce McQuillan.

“It’s Connor. Please make sure you’re covered up.”

The door opened to reveal a girl Connor thought was almost cartoonish in her attractiveness.

Her chocolate eyes were framed by a caramel complexion, blonde highlights, curly brown hair, and perfectly contoured eyebrows. Her frame resembled a stretched hourglass covered in a white, sleeveless shirt and jeans.

“You wish,” Cara said, stepping back to allow him in. “Tom called to tell me to tell you he’s delayed at the garage. He’ll be here soon.”

She led him into the living room, where black leather, wood-framed sofas and the high-hung 85-inch flat screen dominated the space.

Past and present family photographs looked in and car and women’s magazines lay on the coffee table, not unlike a pre-smartphone dentist’s reception.

“So, how’s the industry? Busy?” asked Connor.

Though Cara had never been a stripper, she owned and managed two of West Yorkshire’s most profitable lap dancing bars—’The Dancing Bear’ and ‘The Helena’.

Cara said, “Tom told me about this—that you think strippers can predict market crashes?”

“It’s called the ‘Stripper Index’—the thinking is that at the beginning of an economic downturn, sex work is ditched first as it’s meant to be a non-necessity, similar to the ‘Shoeshine Index’ at the start of the last century.”

“You learn something new every day,” she said. “Business is fine at the moment. I’ll let you know otherwise.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Can I watch the telly?”

“What? Not talking to me?”

“Ahem, yeah, I mean—”

“Only messing,” she said. “You had breakfast? I’m making Tom some.”

“Just a black coffee, please, Cara,” said Connor. “Where’s my nephew?”

“Aidan’s in his room. Should I go get him?”

“Fuck me, no. He’s an annoying little bastard.”

“Maybe you want to wait until after you’ve received your coffee before making comments like that.”

Connor smiled. “Yeah, bring him in, Cara, unless I am pushing it, in which case I’ll go grab him myself.”

“I’ll let you off since we don’t often have the great honour of your company.”

She disappeared to reappear with the two-year-old Aidan.

Despite only seeing his nephew a handful of times, the toddler held out his arms for Connor.

“Jesus, you’re honoured,” exclaimed Cara as she put Aidan into the crook of his arm.

“I was always going to slide into favourite uncle status.”

Cara put her hands on her hips and said, “Pity he hasn’t got a cousin he can play with.”

Connor looked up at her. “Do you have something you want to say, Cara?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Not if you don’t.”

“I am OK.”

She nodded and went back into the kitchen. Connor overcame his aversion to touching another person’s remote control to stick YouTube on.

He searched and selected the third fight between ‘The Baby-faced Assassin’ Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik ‘El Terrible’ Morales.

“OK, Aidan, these two were the best Mexican boxers of the late nineties and early noughties. Both could box, bang and brawl. Their first fight was one of the best ever—Morales got the decision, but most think Barrera should have got it. The second was more of a boxing match—Barrera got the nod, but a lot of people think Morales should have got the decision. Now, this one was a masterclass of combining fighting and boxing. And the right man got the decision this time.”

Before the first round’s completion, Cara had brought in his coffee.

“I don’t want him boxing, Connor.”

“You want him to know how to fight?”

“Tom knows how to fight, and he’s never done boxing.”

“Yeah, but he’s been taught to punch.”

“That’s fine. But I don’t want him brain-damaged.”

“Luke’s been boxing for years and… good point. Maybe Judo, then.”

“Maybe.”

She left again, and his nephew settled into his arm, seemingly transfixed by the fight. He remembered the first time he had watched the original fight between the Mexican warrior-technicians with his dad at seven years of age.

And Connor felt a vague sense of guilt—You should be doing this with your own son.

After another round, he heard the gate open, the Panamera roll in, and the door open a few moments later.

Tom appeared at the door. “Sorry am late, mate.”

“It’s alright, mate.”

Tom exaggeratedly called out as Cara appeared at his shoulder. “Hi, Aidan.”

Without taking his eyes off the screen, his son simply raised his arm before letting it flop.

The adults all laughed.

Cara rubbed Tom’s chest and said, “Breakfast is ready. Want it on a tray in here?”

“Please.”

When she disappeared, Tom took out and handed Connor a black and silver card.

Connor recognised the emblem of the shepherd with a staff to be that of the Zarella hotel chain.

Tom said, “Weisz told me to give this to you. Said you’d know what it was for. Said you won’t have to give your real name when using it.”

Connor didn’t elect to elaborate, and Tom, as ever, didn’t press him.

Cara entered and placed Tom’s breakfast in front of him before asking Connor, “You coming to Katie’s leaving do?”

“If I am still in Leeds, it’ll be more than my life’s worth to miss it.”

Cara said, “Amazing how all you scary men are still scared of your gran.”

Both cousins smiled at that.

Connor felt his phone vibrate. He looked at it—to the uninitiated, it appeared as a promotional message from Papa John’s Pizza.

Still, Connor recognised it as a notification to check his secret email with the view of going on a task with The Chameleon Project.

Bruce began the ascent of Mount Arbel.

He hadn’t hiked for a long time; the restrictions of his work and the geographical constraints of London had consigned his exercise to judo mats and swimming pools.

He had a brief stint of bodybuilding when a physician told him that maintaining quality muscle mass helped slow the ageing process. The Scotsman had then read literature suggesting it was a ‘high-tension inducing muscle fibres to mass ratio’ that pointed to a man ageing well—so he had switched to strength training.

He didn’t have illusions regarding his mortality, nor was he particularly vain. What he did want was to be around for his sister, nieces, and Adriana and to ensure that The Chameleon Project would be in the strongest position possible once he left.

A friend of his had once described Israel as being ‘blessed by God’ when speaking of its non-urban landscape.

Bruce had read that the migrant Jews of the 1940s had tilled the arid land into lush greenery.

The mountain he now climbed stood in the region of the Golan Heights, captured and since retained by Israel back in the Six-Day War of 1967.

Bruce had a healthy admiration of what the Israeli military achieved against the Arab coalition, and it reminded him that the harder and more dangerous the task, the tighter people become in the face of it.

Finally, he reached the summit to take in the three-part view of the jewel-like Sea of Galilee, the fields acting as its curved frame and the blue sky.

He tried to absorb more of its beauty since he had climbed to see it.

The intelligence officer surmised it must have been years since he was unreachable for any significant amount of time.

The thought led to the memory of his kidnapping by the London Brigade of the Russian Bratva.

He had been held for days, and the only reason he still lived was that the newly recruited Connor Reed—with the help of Jaime—got him back when the UK security apparatus couldn’t.

The Glaswegian had fought his appreciation for Reed’s work during that time so as not to cloud his judgement regarding the situations he would put him in.

However, it had been a minor relief when he passed on The Chameleon Project’s reins to Ciara Robson.

After a few minutes, he heard the rustling steps of an approach.

The man with the offset eye he had accosted near the Tel Aviv market appeared.

Bruce judged him to be in his late twenties. He wore an olive jacket over forest green and black trousers.

Bruce faced him and said, “Is there anything further you need to tell me?”

“My name is Ibrahim Haddad.”

“I know who you are, Ibrahim—well, at least I know your official identity as one of the more sought-after energy advisers in the Middle East and Europe.”

“That is my identity—not an ‘official’ identity.”

“Nor is it your only identity, or else you wouldn’t be here at the behest of someone else. Now, who is that exactly?”

“You met them at the first meeting eighteen months ago. Said that you helped with a… communications issue they might have been experiencing.”

Bruce understood then that whoever sent this Ibrahim Haddad wished to keep some degree of deniability, which meant they didn’t fully trust the Scotsman wasn’t wired for sound.

He replied, “Tell me what they have to say.”

“To deflect suspicion, you might call for a full, open, independent enquiry. And do not be naïve—when the pandemic hit, the doctors and nurses of the world became heroes for a time, and the pharmaceutical companies benefitted the most.”

“Thank you for the analogy, but anyone with access to YouTube is aware of the ‘inside job’ conspiracy regarding the October seventh attacks.”

Ibrahim grimaced. “Here’s another analogy, Mister McQuillan—you are a pawn on a board you have never been on. If an insider is behind this, they might seek to remove you from the board.”

“If your boss has taken the risk to reach out to me like this, why are they not meeting me themselves?”

Ibrahim showed Bruce his palms before reaching into his pocket and passing him a folded piece of paper.

“My boss enjoys hiking. Thursday evenings usually—likes to reach the peak just after dusk.”

Bruce watched Ibrahim disappear before opening the paper—an eight-figure grid reference, which he almost instantly memorised before tearing the paper into pieces.

He waited a while to give Ibrahim the chance to put distance between them before turning back down the hill.

Scattering the paper pieces at random intervals, his knees—quiet on the climb—began to protest the descent.

He realised he was no more enlightened than before he met with Ibrahim. For decades, he had known that those who prospered from war often engineered it.

Though, one thing Ibrahim said stuck: “If you want to deflect suspicion, you might call for a full, open, independent enquiry.”

He didn’t even know who was at the meeting. Nor did he know if he could fully trust Ann Zurer enough to ask—for all he knew, she could be either the one who sent Ibrahim or the one who called for the enquiry.

His thoughts drifted to his upcoming meeting with Yossi Bernea—the head of the Arab department of Shin Bet.

It didn’t matter how delicately he asked the questions; it was a near impossibility that the domestic security chief would not take offence.

And the Scotsman had been his usual thorough self with regards to research: By most accounts, Bernea possessed a fiery disposition.

A little older than Bruce, Bernea was just eighteen years old when he’d served in the ground forces of the IDF during the First Lebanon War.

Whatever he did during that invasion of Lebanon to attack PLO forces, he must have impressed certain security apparatus members. Bruce could read between the lines when absorbing files and saw that the redactions to his file coincided with Shin Bet-commissioned insurgencies over the years.

Bruce ascertained Shin Bet would have used the young soldier for various missions and, rather like his boss, fully recruited him into their ranks in the nineties.

Bruce hit the flat ground and wandered to the car park in the almost biblical-looking village of Hamam.

His eyes flickered to the black sedan sliding down the road towards the car park.

He guessed what this might be and remained outwardly oblivious.

It pulled in with uncanny timing just as he had his hand on his car door.

The window wound down.

“Mister McQuillan.”

Bruce turned to see a man with an appearance not dissimilar to a secret service agent.

“Hello,” answered Bruce.

“Mister Bernea is having to move your meeting forward. He instructed me to bring you to him for your meeting.”

“That’s very kind of him.”

“If you want to get into the back, we’ll take you there with the sirens on so you’re not late.”

Bruce knew this to be the first salvo of the game.

“I’ll follow on directly behind.”

“It’s OK, sir. One of our agents will bring your vehicle.”

“I am afraid I can’t do that.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“You heard me just fine.”

“I am going to have to insist.”

Two of the men, over two decades Bruce’s junior, broader and only a touch shorter, alighted from the vehicle.

The Scotsman stepped forward, making the pair stop.

“Please, Mister McQuillan.”

“No. I know you’re following orders. And I know you could probably physically force me to come. But I am saying that you’ll have to.”

“Mister McQuillan, what is the problem? Do you think we want to harm you?”

“I don’t want to set any dangerous precedents. It starts with acquiescence to the merely uncomfortable, then a bit more and a bit more, and then who knows where that will lead.”

He stared at one who stared back for a moment.

“Very well, Mister McQuillan. Follow close behind.”

10

Yuri Kozlov ran his hand over his grey-cropped hair as he waited in a café in the old town of Gdańsk.

The Ukrainian felt that the Polish port city might be one of the more underrated in Europe and enjoyed the tranquillity of watching the sun-warmed crowd amongst the colourful, tall, slender buildings.

He felt only mildly guilty about leaving the Ukrainian-Russian frontline.

Yuri, now touching sixty, had spent most of the last year fighting in and around Bakhmut. No doubt the younger men must have looked at him with suspicion, puzzlement and amusement when he first arrived.

However, this changed, as in the first few months of the Russian invasion, Kozlov had been at the forefront of the fierce and successful resistance to protect Kyiv. Though lacking the spryness of the younger Воїни—warriors—he made up for it with his tactical nous, weapons handling and ingenuity.

The whispers swirled of his being former Spetsnaz with vast experience in both the nineties conflicts of the Tajikistani Civil War and the Chechen Wars despite his being Ukrainian.

Thus, they had given him the command of troop-level units of hastily thrown-together regiments in recapturing territories in the northeast and south.

Around that time, even an old hand like him felt that with the correct influx of equipment, they might be able to not only bloody the nose of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation but to break its legs—and the Kremlin’s political will.

Then, Ukraine’s pawn-like status became apparent on the West versus Russia chessboard, as the supply slowed just as the potential coup de grace could have been struck.

Now, the war in Gaza had threatened to divert the US supply of MIM-104 Patriots—the surface-to-air missile systems that had proved so effective against the Russians.

His original surge of inspirational hope had simmered and threatened to die within him.

And now he sat waiting for Bruce McQuillan’s favoured field agent to arrive, not that the Scotsman would describe Connor Reed as such aloud.

Yuri had known Bruce for nearly three decades without really knowing him.

He met the Scotsman’s protégé a few years ago while aiding him with a mission in Ukraine.

After the young Englishman’s ‘performance’ on that operation, Kozlov had taken to calling him Yaskravyy Demon—The Bright Demon.

The Ukrainian had chosen this café as he had a full view of around a hundred metres down the cobbled street and road that swooped in a long curve to the bottom.

He caught sight of the combination of an open denim shirt over a dark T-shirt with beige trousers.

As the figure hiked closer, he could confirm it was indeed Connor Reed.

Though the head didn’t move, Yuri knew the eyes would be scanning for ‘shadows’; if either suspected any, a signal would be issued, and the Brit would walk right by him.

Connor took a seat.

“Good to see you, Yuri.”

“You too.”

“I’ll tell you what,” began Connor, “I notice a lot of the Polish women are either those squat ‘just come from tilling the fields’ type or lithe ‘just come off the catwalk’ sorts.”

Yuri smiled and signalled to the stern waitress of the former category.

When she came over, the Ukrainian asked Connor in English, “What would you like?”

Connor directed his answer to the waitress. “Omlet z serem i czarna kawa. Nic więcej.”

She nodded and asked Yuri if he needed a top-up of his white coffee before departing.

Yuri spoke in English, “I am impressed with your Polish.”

“Yeah,” said Connor. “I plan on coming over here, taking all the jobs.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Because you’re not a right-wing Brit.”

“And you are?”

“I appreciate the views of both sides.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, but enough about the Ukrainian and Russian war.”

Yuri remained stone-faced as he saw the Englishman holding back a smirk.

Then Connor mimicked writing on an invisible pad as he murmured, “Do not make a joke to a Ukrainian about the ongoing war.”

“Oh, so it was a joke?”

“You’ll never know now.”

“So, how am I to help you?”

Connor asked, “Bruce hasn’t briefed you?”

“He has done more than that—I gathered the intelligence for him,” said Yuri. “I just wanted to make sure I got the plan correct.”

“I need you to help me make the short twenty-one-hundred-kilometre trip to the Crimean Peninsula. I can find myself the rest of the way from there.”

Yuri just stared at him for a moment. “He does not think anything is impossible, does he?”

When Connor shrugged, Yuri continued, “If we make you appear like a magic man there, how do you not expect to be captured or murdered?”

“Once there, I have the cover story and credentials that I am a foreign investment prospective agent for BCJ. It might be enough for a wave through on makeshift checkpoints.”

“The heavy equipment and agricultural machinery manufacturer?”

“Yes. And I am there to meet investors to show the development likely to happen in Crimea.”

Yuri rubbed his beard and said, “Surely the BCJ would be more inclined to contracts in the devastated cities in Ukraine.”

“Or maybe they would play both sides against the middle—many corporations do.”

“I do not understand,” said Yuri. “I thought you did not need an elaborate cover story—that your criminality was the reason for you being in these areas.”

“And if the FSB captures me and they dig, they’ll find it an audacious attempt at money laundering.”

“You think this will work?”

“I am not sure.” Connor smiled. “Might have done something to piss one of them off.”

Yuri laughed. “I think it eats at him that he must use you for these most dangerous missions.”

“There are better agents.”

“That might have been the truth when we first met—not now,” said Yuri, meaning it. “However, he has always thought more of you than the others.”

“I am not sure where you’re getting that from. I’ve never seen any sentimentality in him.”

Yuri smiled. “Who do you think knows him better? You or I?”

“You.”

Yuri nodded and said, “So, am I permitted to know why you need to be inserted into Crimea?”

The waitress arrived and placed Connor’s cheese omelette and black coffee before him. Yuri watched them exchange glances.

Connor thanked the waitress, who smiled, before he turned his attention back to Yuri.

“There are thoughts of a more specific link between the Russians and the Iranian proxies with regards to the attacks.”

“That is one of the many rumours.”

Connor began, “Generally speaking, the Republicans in Washington want to pull, or at least cut, the funding to Ukraine but are all in favour of aid to Israel. The Democrats have devised a support package that combines the two fronts, forcing the Republicans to sign off on aid to Ukraine.”

“I know this. The more money that goes to Israel, the less for us.”

“That’s the point. If the HAMAS attack was orchestrated by an organisation with the motivation of diverting US funding, then those same people won’t want the conflict between Israel and HAMAS settling down.”

“You think there might be another major attack?”

“Another attack is inevitable—Hezbollah will want a piece of the action now that the IDF’s attention is on HAMAS. It’s the potential scale that remains to be seen.”

“Surely Israel would not like to be embarrassed like that again. They will be on guard.”

“It’s unlike the Israeli security apparatus not to be on guard, is it?”

It took Yuri a moment to ask, “Where is our friend now?”

“He might be taking a break in a country with a sunnier climate.”

Yuri chose not to probe further on his old friend’s whereabouts but instead asked, “You must have evidence.”

“I am not sure what he has.”

This made Yuri pause for a moment. “So, what’s the plan?”

“I have a contact in Sevastopol. I just need to get there first.”

“That might be the most dangerous border crossing in the world right now.”

Connor stroked his chin and said, “Remember, when life gives you melons—you probably have dyslexia.”

“I thought it was lem—”

“It’s a joke, for fuck’s sake.”

Yuri couldn’t help but laugh. “I will help you get across, Yaskravyy Demon. I hope God continues to favour you.”

Bruce followed the siren-blaring sedan as it cut through the residential traffic.

The former SAS soldier had admired that once they left the car park in Hamman, a second sedan appeared from a side road to pick up his rear, essentially boxing him in.

The Scotsman thought Yossi Bernea’s attempt at intimidation was not only a little Neanderthal but counterproductive; if he wanted Bruce out of his business, then surely a feigned posture of openness would be the way to go.

They reached a building that looked to Bruce like a series of shapes crammed together.

He had been expecting something smaller and less conspicuous. He realised it to be another show of dominance by the chief of Shin Bet’s Arab department.

They all alighted once in the car park.

One of the men approached. “May I park your car, Mister McQuillan?”

Bruce turned to look at it. “Seems it is parked.”

“That space is for employees.”

“Yeah,” said Bruce. “I’d prefer to put the tracker on the inside, too.”

“I do not know what—”

“Let’s not insult one another’s intelligence,” said Bruce, handing him the keys.

The other three formed a triangle around him as he strode towards the lobby.

A younger version of himself might have created theatrics for amusement—the older he got, the more restraint he preferred to exercise.

On entering, it reminded him of the St. Enoch shopping centre in Glasgow with its curved glass roof and escalators crossed with an airport, as two guards stood centrally with handheld security wands.

The other armed security stood on the periphery.

After passing through, he found himself crammed inside the steel box of a lift with the three others.

It stopped at the fifth floor. The triangle moved him down the corridor to a door of a large corner office.

Bruce had seen the design before; there would be an exit on the other side, out of the view of this one.

One of the guards rapped on the door, and the bark of “Come in” cut through.

The door opened to reveal a man of similar height and build to himself.

Bernea’s grey and white buzzed-down stubble on his head matched the goatee. His large ears angled outwards a touch more than normal.

“Mister McQuillan, please sit.”

Bruce studied psychology to a master’s level in his thirties. He was well acquainted with the various theories and experiments of escalating obedience, the most infamous being the Milgram experiment, which involved the escalation of electric shocks given to a ‘learner’.

With this in mind, he was tempted to say no but decided to pick his battles and took the wooden, unpadded seat.

“Thank you for seeing me, Mister Bernea,” said Bruce, showing no annoyance.

This seemed to soften Yossi Bernea, who remained standing for a moment before sitting.

“I hope you understand my bringing you here. As you can imagine, issues needing my attention constantly fly towards me, so I had to take the window of opportunity once it presented itself.”

“Of course,” answered Bruce. “You wouldn’t be doing your job if the real-time security of the Israeli people didn’t supersede a perfunctory external investigation conducted by a man on his first visit to the country.”

Bernea’s sloped eyes regarded Bruce before the barest hint of a smile appeared beneath the hooked nose.

“I am glad you see the logic. I was anticipating that you wouldn’t. I’ve allocated as large a block of time as I could.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Would you like anything to drink?”

“A black coffee, please.”

Bernea pressed the desk’s intercom and ordered two.

“So, where do we begin?”

“A report from the signals intelligence unit came through the month prior to Black Saturday with the comment, ‘I refuse to believe this scenario is imaginary.’ What actions were taken upon receipt of this report?”

“You’re familiar with the premise that each report must undergo a stringent battery of checks to not waste precious resources and manpower?”

“Of course.”

“And a man of your vast experience is aware of disinformation.”

“Yes,” replied Bruce. “And I am also aware of the limitations of your service in the face of such a daily onslaught of signal traffic. I am simply asking of the actions taken.”

“The report was analysed at the first department level. The comment attached was made by a junior staffer, not the team leader. It sat on the third and final rung of being actionable when the attack struck.”

“There have been other confirmed reports.”

“Of which were passed up the chain. We have nothing to hide.”

“I didn’t say you did, Mister Bernea. I am attempting to piece together a picture.”

“Let me tell you something off the record, Mister McQuillan. Our agency isn’t meant to prevent terror attacks.  We are here to collect intel, analyse, conclude and warn the decision-makers.”

Bruce nodded. “I see.”

“Do you? Can you imagine why certain decision-makers might hold off taking pre-emptive action?”

“I’ll answer as long as we understand that this is merely me imagining and not necessarily what I believe.”

“Deal.”

A knock at the door interrupted them. A handsome middle-aged woman with a beehive haircut entered with the two mugs on a tray.

Bernea thanked her, and she left after a half-nod, half-curtsy.

The Arab department chief prompted, “You were saying, Mister McQuillan.”

Knowing he might be recorded, Bruce repeated, “I’ll answer as long as we understand that this is merely me imagining and not necessarily what I believe.”

Bernea smiled. “Yes, I remember.”

“A cynical man might suggest that the attack might have been allowed to happen so that Israel has an excuse to hammer HAMAS. It’s better geopolitically to strike back as a victim than as an aggressor.”

“And how has that worked out?”

“It hasn’t.”

“No, it hasn’t. The media—both mainstream and social—love to circulate videos and pictures of Palestinian children pulled out of bombed-out hospitals. More than ever, they look like the rebels and we the evil empire. And certain people in power can’t see that.”

“Would a cynic suggest that the powers that be allowed an attack of such magnitude to happen?”

“No, the scale of the attack would not have been expected. Which leads to our failings. We just don’t look at HAMAS as equals—at least, we didn’t.”

“Hindsight is a wonderful thing.”

“I don’t shirk my failures. And they shouldn’t be forgiven in our business,” said Bernea. “I am resigning from my post.”

“Seems a shame that a good man would resign if there were nefarious men within Israel’s power structure colluding against her.”

“Mister McQuillan, I would tread carefully regarding theories such as that. But between us—are you aware of the term ‘normalisation’?”

“Israel forming or strengthening its trade links with its Arab neighbours,” answered Bruce. “Nothing brings about peace quicker than the prospect of powerful men losing money.”

Bernea smiled. “Are you aware of the rumours regarding it before the attacks?”

Bruce considered acting ignorant but thought better of it. “That Israel and Saudi Arabia were about to break ground on ‘the deal of the century’, as the Middle East political media would say.”

“And certain players would not be happy at all.”

“Iran and Saudi Arabia’s Sunni Islamist political opposition,” said Bruce. “Who happens to be Israel’s enemies, too.”

“Maybe not just them, Mister McQuillan,” said Berna, who reached into a drawer to his left.

He handed Bruce a thumb drive and said, “All the information you need. You’ll know the information in there is accurate to my knowledge when you absorb it.”

Bruce nodded. “Because it doesn’t hold back on what could be seen as potential failures within your department?”

“Exactly.”

The Scotsman stared at him for a moment. “Why are you entrusting me with this?”

“Because no one is winning this war. We are all losing to varying degrees.”

11

Connor sat in the passenger seat of an Israeli MRAP GAIA Nasser military truck outside a white-pillared municipal building in the Mykolaiv.

The southern Ukrainian city sat two-hundred and twenty miles away from Crimea as the crow flies, well over double that taking a standard recommended road route.

He and Yuri had spent the previous two days travelling.

Due to the restricted airspace over Ukraine, the two men flew to Kraków and, from there, hired a vehicle to Kyiv.

The shock to Connor had come once they had arrived at Vasylkiv Air Base.

The black operations agent could see the subtle reverence in the body language of the personnel toward Yuri—some were officers, albeit relatively junior.

And Connor’s grasp of Ukrainian—related to Russian but with Polish edges—was stronger now in that he could often pick up the thread of what was being said, but the details frequently flew past him.

More than one had referred to Yuri as Командир, which he knew to be ‘Commander’.

This was confirmed by the fact that, within fifteen minutes, their belongings had been transferred to a Nasser, and its keys had been placed in Yuri’s possession.

Once in it and driving, Connor had turned to him and asked with incredulity, “When did Israel start kitting out the Ukrainians?”

Yuri had laughed. “How did you get Iranian drones? Russians say, ‘What drones?’ How did you get Israeli cars? Ukrainians say, ‘What cars?’”

Indeed, The Chameleon Project agent had read in Jaime’s report that not only were there agents from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps operating the feared Shahed drones against Ukrainian urban areas but there had been signals chatter of North Korean soldiers being moved into the Kursk region.

Connor took the opportunity to grill Yuri on his thoughts on the geopolitical climate and how the war was progressing and to practice his Ukrainian.

They had arrived here in Mykolaiv an hour ago, and Yuri had told him to wait and that he would be a while.

As the Ukrainian entered the municipal building, Connor saw the two guards—armed with Bullpup Kalashnikov variant IPI Malyuks—give the old warhorse the nod.

Yuri, in turn, gestured to Connor as he said something to them, which the former Royal Marine hoped was more along the lines of ‘Make sure no one fucks with him’ than ‘Keep an eye on him’.

The older man’s importance within Ukraine was evident to Connor as they began to pass through various checkpoints further south.

And Connor wasn’t sure how much confidence to put in this apparent deference towards Yuri—a man he didn’t know too well. Clearly, Bruce trusted the Ukrainian, but at the beginning of Connor’s black operations career, it was the Scotsman who had drilled into him more than once the need to keep one’s own counsel.

The first time he crossed the border into Crimea, Ciara’s quick thinking and female charms saved the day.

However, though the ‘little green men’ had annexed the Crimea Peninsula, the war had not been nearly as kinetic as it was now.

And Connor still did not know why a British black operations unit was tasked with dealing with this.

Still, though Connor didn’t like to think of himself as sycophantic to the man, he knew he owed an eternal debt—and so didn’t push questions if they were not easily answered.

Without him, Connor would be serving eighteen years in prison for the torture and murder of paedophile politician Stephen Hardcastle.

Instead, the then-boss of The Chameleon Project—a black operations unit with frightening autonomy—brought Connor in and made the best use of not only his attributes and background but also was accepting of his psychological ‘defects’.

Connor reached into his bag and fetched a dog-eared copy of ‘The Hunter’ by Tom Wood, a book he thoroughly enjoyed over a decade ago.

Victor would know what to do, he thought.

Finally, Yuri exited the building, got in and started the engine.

Once they had pulled out onto a residential road, Yuri began to speak.

“We are directing towards Krynky. We will cross there.”

“That’s wonderful,” said Connor. “The Russians have already stated their intention to take the town. And their next rotation to the area is to include armoured vehicles.”

“I am impressed,” said Yuri. “The strategy is to allow them to take it, eventually. The entire town will be booby-trapped, and the largest drone strike will begin.”

“I am not entirely sure how this is good news for me getting over.”

“Because you are now Connor Reed, the humanitarian tasked by a humanitarian group to help evacuate the civilian population.”

“And so…”

“And so, you continue your work a little longer than you should. And you are unfortunately captured.”

“It gets better. Then they find my documentation displaying that I am meant to be a foreign prospector for the BCJ and conclude I am a foreign agent,” said Connor, displaying a mockingly forced Joker grin. “Luckily for me, I’ve not long seen ‘Rambo: First Blood Part II’, so I’ll know how to behave under interrogation.”

“I am glad to see you embrace this.”

Connor said, “Though that was the ‘Soviets’. Apologies for my political incorrectness.”

“You are a funny man, Mister Reed.”

“Funny, how? Like I am a clown, I amuse you? I am here to fucking amuse you?”

Connor caught Yuri side-eyeing him before he said, “Even I have seen ‘Goodfellas’, Mister Reed.”

“OK. So I get captured—”

“The person who is to capture you is a deep contact I have made through the SZRU. Hide your credentials well. The search will not be very… complete,” said Yuri.

“Thorough is a better word.”

“Yes, thorough,” said Yuri. “Then you will be taken for processing at Simferopol but ‘lost’ on the way there. Maybe a miscount.”

Connor nodded as he processed this. “I am to enter the hottest zone of the world’s biggest current war, unarmed, allow myself to be captured, and hope this Russian stranger delivers me to my designation unmolested?”

After a few quiet moments, Yuri said, “That is correct.”

“Just wanted to make sure,” answered Connor. “Let’s start with the details.”

From this high point within the Jerusalem Forest, the Israeli could see the beginnings of Yad Vashem—Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust.

The clean air carried the scent of cedar, pine and olive trees.

The Jericho 941 pistol lay on the hip of the Krav Maga Level Three expert like a vicious but trained Belgian Malinois.

The voice from behind said, “Are you here to shoot me, Raz?”

Without turning, the head of Caesarea replied, “Why would I do that when I could kill you with my bare hands, my old friend.”

Bruce McQuillan drew alongside him. “Glad to see the desk hasn’t softened your edges.”

“I am glad of the compliment, but neither can say we are the same men as we were thirty years ago.”

Raz felt aware that although he himself wore a dark green flight jacket over his jeans, the Scotsman only had on a charcoal cable knit jumper on this cold-for-summer evening.

“It would be a wasted thirty years if we were,” replied the Scotsman. “I remember our first meeting having a view that rivalled this one.”

“I don’t think I admire many views when the threat of torture and death hang over it.”

“That’s when you have to appreciate it more.”

“One thing I always wanted to ask you about that night.”

“Why did I let you live?”

“Yes,” said Raz. “Because I know that there was no warning from my people.”

“You know that true intelligence operations remain a secret forever.”

Back in the nineties, as a young teen, Raz Sharir had successfully infiltrated the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

At the age of ten, Raz had been orphaned by a car crash.

And he had been effectively adopted by Shin Bet and trained as an infiltration agent—who eventually embedded him with a Gazan double agent under the backstory of being orphaned from his Jordanian parents.

Later in his life, he asked why, such was his success, Israel had discontinued the practice of weaponising orphans. He had expected an answer that included the words ‘child protection’ or ‘human rights’ but was told, “We got the idea from the KGB. But this is Israel. Once the child becomes a man, they want to sleep with girls, get married, make money, raise a family. Not play cowboys and Indians with Palestinian terrorists.”

In this regard, Raz knew himself to be an anomaly, as it had taken him until his mid-thirties to come out of the field entirely.

The intelligence he had fed back to his Mossad handlers and the assassinations he carried out saw his star rise within the organisation.

However, one night, he had been a twenty-year-old running a PLO operation to supply dissident Irish Republicans determined to derail the imminent Good Friday Agreement.

All members of that operation were massacred in an ambush—except him.

With his cover blown, he returned to be sent to other AOs—Area of Operations.

The silence stretched between them before the Scotsman broke it with, “So, why did you take the gamble to send me the information regarding a Russian ‘dirty’ bomb and the plans to steal it? You know, if it’s true, then not even Miles Parker knows, and SIS have assets within the Russian political and security apparatus.”

“Because I am not sure who I can trust here,” said Raz sincerely.

Several weeks ago, Raz took the risk of having one of his London agents, posing as a courier, drop a memory card on Bruce as he breakfasted in a Camden Town café.

“How did you come by the information?”

“My unit has developed a source within the Russian Middle Eastern Department of Political Intelligence. An aide to one of the more senior members, should we say.”

“Petr Fradkov—the deputy head.”

Raz, a little surprised with the rapidity and accuracy of the answer, said, “Yes.”

The Scotsman said, “Then why not warn the Russians?”

“Because I do not know who I can trust—both in Russia or here.”

“And you don’t know who will be contracted to do the actual stealing?”

“No.”

A moment of silence passed between them before Bruce said, “When I heard about the October seventh attacks, I remember thinking, I bet the ‘old and bold’ within the Knesset yearn for the days of Arafat now.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“You’ll have to expand on that.”

“The current Israeli administration is the most war-like government in memory—and HAMAS are just the excuse they need to pound Gaza.”

“I don’t think the international community are as sympathetic as they imagined.”

“That’s the point. The more the international community condemns them, the more the flames of nationalism are fanned. And this government knows that.”

Another pause.

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“I can’t prove anything. I hear things. And let’s not pretend you don’t have your suspicions, or else you wouldn’t have taken the risk to meet.”

“I thought a man with your contacts would have your suspects nailed down by now.”

Raz said, “I am obviously privy to more sensitive information than most. But my unit does not have jurisdiction on Israeli soil—I can’t press without arousing suspicion. And I don’t trust anyone within our apparatus.”

“Which is why you feigned not knowing me during the meeting eighteen months ago.”

“Precisely.”

“So you don’t believe it could be a conspiracy theory that has set in the collective Palestinian imagination.”

“When I say I hear things, I mean specific things. Like at least one network intelligence officer purposely delaying reports.”

Bruce countered, “There are many levels of screening a piece of intelligence must be subjected to. It’s not necessarily NIOs who are solely to blame.”

Raz smiled. “Have you heard the joke about the NIO meeting God on his divine throne upon his death?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“The souls are queuing to ask God which part of the afterlife they are going. Naturally, he’s the last in the line. Finally, it’s his turn, and God inquires, ‘Where are you off to?’ The NIO replies, ‘Nowhere, you’re in my seat.’”

Bruce said, “You may have missed your true calling in stand-up, Raz.”

“The point is, if an NIO deems a piece of intelligence important, then it is important.”

“So this is all you have heard? The incompetency of an NIO?”

“Only myths and rumours.”

“Then let’s hear them. This might be the only time we have contact like this.”

“The Iranians funded the attacks. The Russians helped orchestrate it. There are rumours that a half-Iranian, half-Russian former Spetsnaz officer coordinated this. He has spent most of the last ten years planning and instigating the operations for the Quds Force. They say he is the second coming of Imad Mughniyeah.”

Raz referred to Hezbollah’s former military tactician whom one CIA source had described as “…probably the most intelligent, most capable operative we’ve ever run across, including the KGB…”

The old assassin remembered back in his more junior days in the Caesarea, the chief back then throwing his hands up in the air after another abortive attempt to hit the Lebanese magician, saying, “…he’s like a fucking deadly mosquito you just can’t swat.”

“Are you sure that the collective hate for HAMAS hasn’t blinded them to their capabilities, and this half-Iranian, half-Russian ghost isn’t the brain’s way of explaining how they pulled this off?”

Raz half turned to Bruce with a smile. “I have been in interdepartmental meetings where Yossi Bernea has been pleading to the prime minister about HAMAS’s increasing capabilities. The government thought that HAMAS wouldn’t have the motivation to strike with all the work visas and Israel’s retaliation, seemingly not understanding that they would not change their nature.”

Bruce murmured, “The frog and the scorpion.”

“What frog and scorpion?”

“A scorpion asks a frog for a ride across a river. The frog isn’t sure the scorpion won’t sting him. The scorpion says, ‘If I did that, we would both drown. I am not stupid.’ The frog sees the logic and lets him hop on… crawl on, rather… but midway across, the scorpion stings him. Before they are about to drown, the frog asks, ‘Why did you sting me?’ The scorpion replies, ‘Because I am a scorpion.’”

Raz grimaced as the dark got darker. “Very apt.”

“What about David Nazzal? He seemed very forthcoming when I interviewed him.”

“You see,” started Raz, who took a moment before continuing, “he was less energetic in his proclamations of HAMAS’s continued hostile intentions. He didn’t contradict Yossi exactly, just… less forceful.”

“Perhaps a full-blooded contradiction would have signalled a disunity he didn’t want to project.”

“Perhaps,” admitted Raz. “But the Palestinian people will never have peace while HAMAS rule.”

“They were elected democratically, Raz.”

“Do you believe that?”

As if he hadn’t heard him, the Scot asked, “Something I wanted to ask you, Raz—for curiosity reasons—why did you transfer to Mossad? When I met you, I thought you’d be Shabak until you died.”

Raz stared into the night for a few moments. “It was a penetration operation in Gaza back in the night of HAMAS’s election victory. We were there to ID some of the HAMAS militants and tag their vehicles with trackers. Years after my PLO operations, I was transferred to Shimshon.”

As a former member of ‘The Increment’, Bruce knew a little of the highly secretive Shimshon.

Duvdevan—a unit that ran undercover operations in urban areas exclusive to the West Bank—eventually found itself with the sister unit Shimshon—Samson Unit—targeting Palestinian militants in Gaza.

Shimshon was disbanded in the mid-nineties in accordance with the Oslo Accords. However, the Israelis—very quietly—resurrected it under the spurious Shin Bet name of S13-16.

Thirteen-sixteen were chapters from the ‘Book of Judges’ detailing Samson’s story. However, to the unit members, it was called Shimshon.

Bruce knew that S13-16—unlike the former Shimshon who performed their own ‘kinetic’ operations—had been founded as an ‘eyes and ears’ unit for the Kidon.

However, due to its previous inability to take advantage of opportunistic targets, the decision had been made to embed a handful of the Kidon permanently.

“Because of their habit of covering their faces, I could hide amongst them despite my prior undercover role with the PLO. A senior ranked member of Fatah had been caught trying to escape the city with his family. They took them down an alleyway and executed all of them, but the son escaped—all of ten years old.”

The Scotsman said, “And he remained alive because you intervened.”

“I intervened and blew the operation. The other agents had to fight—we gunned down several militants that day without taking a casualty. When I got back, I was told by my Shabak commander that putting the life of a ten-year-old Gazan over the men and the mission was a sin they couldn’t forgive. Mossad had been making overtures towards me for a while, and the Kidon who were with me that day seemed to think I was a natural killer—appeared obvious I go there.”

“What happened to the boy?”

“That’s a story for another time.”

Bruce McQuillan nodded and said, “Surely this… coordinator you spoke of before has some kind of moniker he goes by?”

“I am sure he has some Russian name, but I have heard that the Lebanese have been known to call him ‘Alastiratijiu’.”

“Which means?”

“‘The Strategist’.”

Over the years, Ciara had developed an immunity to the surreptitious glances her way when in the gym.

Devoid of music, she sensed a quietness amongst the mainly male bodybuilding crowd behind her on the various free weight and machine apparatus.

Though she had invested in a home gym, she avoided using it unless extremely time-pressed, believing it unhealthy to spend too much time in one’s abode.

Now, midway through her workout on one of the twin weightlifting platforms, she prepared to pull her last set of three on the hundred-and-fifty-kilogram deadlift.

She recalled how several years ago, Connor had out-lifted her by twenty kilos, which had pissed her off at the time.

Back then, she had been head-turning in her uncommon female muscularity. Now, she possessed more pure strength in her still impressive physique.

Ciara now followed Connor’s suit in employing the ‘hook-grip’ to avoid possible imbalances of the ‘alternative grip’.

The stretch in her hamstrings as she dipped felt like cobras coiling, and she radiated tension throughout her form before squeezing the barbell off the floor for a relatively easy three.

The blonde had recently read a book Connor recommended titled ‘Easy Strength by Dan John and Pavel Tstatsouline’ and decided to ‘…leave a couple in the tank’.

It had been over a couple of hours since she received Connor’s report of how Yuri Kozlov planned to get him over the border.

It had only been four days since she had briefed Connor on his task to reach the North Caucasus.

She hid vague embarrassment at not having a definitive objective outside of “get to the Caucasus” and that he was not long back from a Canada operation that ended in hospital.

If either bothered him, he didn’t show it outside of some light-hearted sarcasm.

However, he had inquired, “Why can’t I go through Turkey rather than a war zone? I’d rather fight through ‘Lucky, Lucky Men’ selling sunglasses than being shot at.”

Ciara had replied, “Because there can’t be any trace of your going there. Your contact in Crimea could facilitate that.”

He seemed to accept this, but his insistence that Jaime did not have to find him accommodation had taken her back, but she had allowed it.

Ciara, encouraged by Bruce, began studying psychology. She had read more than one study suggesting that a ceaseless craving for action might indicate an antisocial disorder.

Ciara couldn’t see it herself; the Yorkshireman might have been the most charismatic man she knew.

Maybe that is the point, she mused.

12

Connor dropped down as the pair of Russian Sukhoi Su-34 warplanes screamed overhead in the war-torn atmosphere.

The former Royal Marine felt a karmic hand on the back of his neck—he had completed two tours of Afghanistan when only the enemy had to worry about death machines in the skies.

He hid behind a light blue skip, the colour matching the window frames of the beige building surrounding him.

If it hadn’t been for the warplanes, Connor would have found it difficult to distinguish between this and an agricultural office block in the British countryside.

Connor had seen that the Russian Standard Operating Procedure for annexing a large town or city was to encircle it before bombing the fuck out of it with heavy artillery.

However, Yuri had assured him that with Krynky technically being a village with critical infrastructure, the Russians wanted to take it with minimal to no bombardment.

On his way through, Connor had seen the cold-paled Ukrainians preparing for the onslaught and recognised the ‘thousand-yard stare’ in them that he had once seen in the mirror.

The variety exhibited in their uniforms and weapons seemed strange to him initially.

AK-74s formed the bulk of the assault rifles, a few with polished wood furniture and more made entirely with black polymer, but he’d seen more than one M4-WAC-47, which looked like the Colt AR-15 it was based on.

Variations in kit set-up were nothing new to Connor in his time in the Marines, but the variety stretched wider here in that some had Digicam trousers while a few wore dark ones, and the helmet designs differed.

The Englishman’s Humanitarian Aid Work attire made him feel like a eunuch at a nudist beach. The touch oversized, red and navy blue jacket and trousers had reflective bandings around the arms and legs.

His seventy-five-litre Herschel backpack held enough to sustain him for a week in the field. Inside the left side holder sat a Molle medical pouch, where his credentials lay inside a hidden compartment.

Dressed as an aid worker, packed like a soldier, except I have no weapon, thought Connor.

But it was his lack of conviction in killing any combatant, from either side, in this conflict that worried him.

The Brit could kill, and had killed, people under the murky justification of ‘the greater good’. However, he only found murder thrilling when he knew them to be evil.

Having studied extensively, he could see Putin’s geopolitical views, even if he disagreed with the methods.

Though some of the West’s political commenters saw Putin as imperialistic, insecure and paranoid, Connor would imagine that if he were the Russian leader, he might be concerned about NATO expansion and the potential contagion of the West.

That said, he admired the Ukrainian war effort in the face of seemingly perilous odds, especially the defence of Kyiv at the beginning of the war.

Yuri appeared from the entrance, exhorting a foursome of teachers into the white and red Toyota Hilux for extraction.

Once they were in, he turned to Connor and said, “You should go and check the building for any straddlers.”

Connor nodded—this was where Yuri would leave him—before correcting, “Stragglers.”

“Yes, stragglers,” said Yuri. “Stay here. My contact will conduct the search. Be the first man in. He will find you and ensure you are not harmed. It might spend a few hours.”

“It’s OK. I’ve got my book.”

“Be safe, Yaskravyy Demon.”

Connor smiled and asked, “Why is your nickname for me Bright Demon? Is this you thinking Dark Angel is too cliché?”

Yuri laughed. “You are aware of the ‘War in Heaven’?”

Connor caught Yuri’s look of surprise when he answered, “I have read ‘Revelations’, yes.”

“I am surprised. Most Western men—”

“Would you kindly hurry this story up cos the Ruskies are meant to be coming?”

“Relax, I told you, we have time,” said Yuri with a dismissive wave of his hand. “What has been removed from the Bible was that God’s angels won the seventh battle because the Archangel Michael promised one of Satan’s soldiers that he would be spared eternal damnation if he killed the Devil’s demons.”

“If it was removed from the Bible, how do you know about it?”

“Every Southern Ukrainian child knows of the deal the Archangel Michael made to keep God’s hands clean.”

“I see.”

“Maybe Bruce is Michael.”

“OK. I get that very subtle analogy,” said Connor.

Yuri held out his hand, and as they grasped, the older man’s other hand clamped his elbow. “Don’t forget who you are, my friend.”

“I’ll, err… use this next hour or so to process your sage advice.”

Yuri smiled, released him and barked orders to his men.

Connor entered, not wishing to be out in the open longer than necessary.

The immediate hallway looked less like it belonged to a school and more like a neglected manor.

He bolted up the stairs walled with peeling orange paint to reveal the white undercoat and bundled himself into one of the classrooms.

The chairs and tables didn’t know whether they were green or yellow.

Various pictures plastered the walls beneath a huge rainbow.

Connor felt a little weird imagining a scene of children in class juxtaposed with the active war zone it was about to become.

A pair of gunshots broke through his reprieve, and he darted for the view from the window whilst being careful to stand away from it.

His heart sank as he observed several soldiers without insignia had surrounded Yuri’s short convoy.

He whispered, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Though he couldn’t quite tell at this distance, he guessed the assault rifles they brandished to be AK-105s.

As he watched the soldiers bark at the alighting teachers, he tried to ascertain who they were.

The Wagner Group had reportedly been disbanded when its leadership—Dmitry Utkin and Yevgeny Prigozhin—died with eight others in a plane crash in Tver Oblast.

There had been reports of its resurrection, but these had been smudged by conjecture and myth.

Connor knew the Russian state either directly used, or at least turned a blind eye to, various private armies so that it could keep its hands cleaner and casualty and KIA statistics lighter.

REDUT, Patriot, The Rusich Group and Russian Imperial Movement (RIM) were among the names, with some being highly professional mercenaries, whilst others were just thugs with guns, and a lot in between.

Or maybe they were simply looters taking advantage of the exodus of the population before the firing began—pretty brazen considering how close the Ukrainian troop formations were, but possible.

Connor watched Yuri float his arms in the air.

He could see the veteran in urgent conversation with his captors.

“Come on,” murmured Connor. “Just enjoy your power trip, lads, and then let ‘em go.”

His heart simmered on seeing Yuri and the soldiers throw their heads back in laughter.

Then it jumped into his throat as one of the soldiers fired a burst into the Ukrainian’s chest.

Igor Ozhogin smiled as the Ukrainian Humanitarian fell.

With the Wagner Group ‘restructuring’, he had a temporary allowance to form his own reconnaissance section.

The commanding of seven men had confirmed to him what he had always known—that he was a natural leader.

Their intelligence would find itself in the Russian military—though not directly in keeping with the army’s need for deniability.

And Igor leant into this; if his unit was deniable, their actions were, too.

He stood over the body and announced to the gasping women, “I need to conduct interviews with you all in turn.”

He pointed to a dark-haired, petite, pixie-looking one. “You will be first. Let’s conduct it at the school.”

Her white-dotted, dark blue ankle-length dress looked easily torn.

One of his men’s barrel-jabbed her into moving as he asked Igor, “Shall we drive them all over?”

Igor thought quickly. “No, I want to keep the main body away in case the school is targeted by Ukrainian artillery for propaganda purposes.”

“Understood.”

Igor jerked his head at the woman towards the school.

He began soothingly, “I am the leader of a reconnaissance unit. We are here to develop an intelligence picture. That is all.”

“But I don’t know anything.”

“You might know something and not realise it. Do not be troubled.”

“What do you want to know?”

Fuck, he thought. Think.

“When did you get the call to evacuate?”

“This morning.”

“Why didn’t you leave then?”

“We had to wait with some of the children until their parents got here,” she said with a sneer that suggested the fear was dissipating a little.

“I understand.”

“Surely we don’t need to go inside. I can tell you what I know now—nothing.”

“Don’t be silly. You know this town.”

She slowed as they arrived at the door before stopping. “I do not want to go in there.”

His punch to her solar plexus sat her down, setting her eyes in pain as her mouth clawed for oxygen.

He slowly pulled down his olive green shemagh, revealing his mouth.

“I do not care what you want to do. You either go in there, or I’ll shoot you in your fucking feet and drag you. Now get up.”

He aided her rise by gripping her hairclip and directed her to the door.

After seeing the submission in her eyes, he felt his cock swell.

As she began to turn to face him, he ordered, “Up the stairs.”

He slung his rifle behind him.

“Please, please—”

“Up. The. Stairs.”

He let her climb a couple of the steps to have her ass at his eye level as he followed her. A bit flat. The pussy should be fresh.

She paused at the top of the stairs, seemingly hesitant as to which room to go in.

“The one to the left.”

No sooner had she stepped in than she began to plead, “Please. I am married. I have—”

“He can be an ignorant husband or a widower. Now, place your hands on the wall… Miss.”

Her eyes widened, and she screamed, “PLEASE. NO.”

He expected a refusal, but the fact that she seemed horrified at the thought of fucking him shot a bolt of rage through him.

He launched himself at her, his fingers clamping onto her throat.

An impact exploded into the side of his head.

His legs betrayed him, tipping him to the floor. It took a split second to realise he had been hit.

His arms moved through an invisible treacle to bring his rifle back around.

The boot stamped his consciousness out of his brain and all over the floor.

13

Connor spun around to face the clearly stricken woman.

He knew southern Ukrainians born before the early eighties generally didn’t speak English. This woman looked more his age.

“Do you speak English?”

She held her arms raised. “A little bit.”

“What is your name?”

“Liya.”

Judging by her accent, he guessed it to be learnt from watching Hollywood films.

As Connor turned to unburden the man of the AK-105, he asked, “He was going to rape you, yes?”

“Yes.”

Connor slung the rifle behind his back and peeked through the window to ensure there wasn’t a follow-up.

“Go into the next room. I’ll be three minutes. I am yours and your friends’ best hope now. Do you understand?”

She slowly nodded. “I will do what you say.”

Once alone with him, Connor took advantage of the soldier’s comatose state to frisk him thoroughly.

It gladdened him to find a dagger strapped to his boot. Connor recognised the strange black blade to be an NR40 Soviet combat knife. And to Connor’s eyes, it looked to be a 1940s original.

The soldier began to stir, and Connor gripped and dragged him onto his front.

Connor forced his knee between the soldier’s shoulder blades and placed the tip of the dagger against his neck.

He whispered, “If you don’t speak English, then I have no use for you.”

“I speak little. A little.”

“Who are you? Your unit?”

“We are no one. We are not Russian Army.”

“Wagner?”

“No, my friend. I have my own unit.”

Connor clamped his palm on the back of the head and pressed the tip in until a rivulet seeped out.

“Better hope you’ve cleaned this,” said Connor. “Stop fucking around. Who do you report to?”

“Marat Basila… Basilas—”

“Marat Basilashvili?”

“Yes.”

Connor knew Basilashvili to have risen through the new ‘Cossack Brigades’, which were essentially Wagner but partially integrated into the Rosgvardia National Guard.

And Connor knew this particular unit would be classified in Russian files as ‘Active: To be processed’, giving the Russian military plausible deniability.

“Why have you stopped those teachers from leaving?”

“For information?”

Connor slid the dagger off his throat.

“She was screaming because you were asking for information?”

“I was horny, I want to fuck,” said the rapist. “My friends will look for me. Be nice, and I will be nice.”

“That’s a good one, Boris.”

“My name is not—”

The NR40 punched sideways into his throat. Connor then pressed and sawed as the soldier’s hands clawed for his.

The coppery-iron stench billowed with the arterial spray.

His victim bucked wildly as it felt like warm, thin soup sprayed over his knife hand.

The curdling gasps barked wetness into his mouth-clamping hand.

Eventually, the arterial mist took the soldier’s life force with it. Connor felt annoyed by the blood marking him.

Once sure of death, Connor stood and turned to find the wide-eyed woman standing still.

He sidled over to the window.

He could see the women on their knees, heads bowed with the barrels of the soldiers’ weapons hovering threateningly, like python heads.

He walked over to the woman and snapped his fingers in her face.

“Do you want to live?”

“Yes.”

“And your colleagues—your friends?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then you’ll do exactly what I say. I am guessing this might not be the first time he’s tried to rape a woman, and he didn’t strike me as a guy who takes time. They are going to come here soon.”

“OK. I will do what you tell me.”

“How do I say, ‘Send three,’ in Russian?”

Gennadi stood with his mounting irritation threatening to burn into anger.

This had been the second time Oleg had raped while they had all stood around like garden ornaments.

He should be finishing about now anyway.

His eyes drifted towards the door before his ears caught the screaming.

The girl bolted out of the entrance with Oleg in pursuit. His commander managed to trip the woman and pin her to the ground with his knee.

Gennadi sneered—He hasn’t even got his shemagh off, let alone his pants.

Gennadi surmised that she was on her period, as even from this distance, he could see blood on his right hand.

Oleg raised the said hand and beckoned them with a hoarse screech of, “Otpravit’ tri.”

He then dragged her back into the house.

Gennadi turned to the section. “Yury, Maksim, Fillip. Go see why he needs three men to restrain one woman.”

As a young Royal Marine, Connor had learnt the devastating effects of enfilade fire—directing fire upon the longest axis of an enemy formation.

If they approached or entered the school with any form of combat discipline, then the black operations agent knew he’d essentially trapped himself.

He and Liya enacted the fiction of rape with their voices as they approached.

He heard the stairs creak and waited a few moments as he watched the first soldier’s head crown.

Come on, Connor. Everybody in the German Army knows Hugo Stiglitz.

Connor, already having the AK 105 on automatic, jumped out to see the three soldiers’ faces snap up at him.

In the next instant, a fusillade of 5.45mm calibre bullets unzipped, smashing into the foreheads of the first pair.

The tops of their heads came off like gory Frisbees.

The third managed to raise his own AK 105, but hot rounds punched into his throat and jaw, severing the pathway from brain to trigger finger.

Connor awkwardly trampled down through the bodies, scrambling for some spare magazines.

He gave himself around twenty seconds before the rest of the squad surrounded the school.

He bundled up one of the AK 105s, turned and pressed it into Liya’s hands.

“Remember, stand far back from the window, and fire bursts through it until it clicks a stop. Then, lay face down on the floor. Understand?”

When she didn’t immediately respond, he slapped her without venom.

“Yes, I understand.”

“Good.”

Connor leapt through the corpses to the entrance.

He cleared his exit before bursting out to his left.

The sounds of boots chopped through him.

He turned, using the second building as cover.

On cue came the screams of glass-shattering automatic fire.

The response cried back as the squad returned fired.

Connor sprinted hard to loop around, knowing that if they breached, Liya would die.

He sped around the last corner to be confronted by a barrel of an AK 105 twenty metres away.

He snapped a burst off.

The return fire caught the magazine pouch, spinning and felling him to face the opposite way.

He rolled back into cover, his mind assessing. They had displayed a semblance of professionalism by posting a rear-facing sentry.

The soldier in him had to assume they would organise themselves to trap him in a pincer movement.

He thought of entering the building immediately to his front—but dismissed it as trapping himself.

Though they didn’t have helmets on, they had body armour.

Connor chose the right side, listened and ripped open his grenade pouch.

His heart leapt as he pulled out what looked like a perfume bottle sprayed blue with a yellow stripe.

He knew this to be an RG-Vo, a grenade with chloroacetophenone (CN), which the Geneva Protocol prohibits.

And he knew that seventy inhaled drops could kill.

Due to the propaganda war, Connor hadn’t been sure the Russians had actually used them.

But if their neo-Nazi proxies use them, there’s deniability.

On cue, one landed with a thud at his feet.

Connor charged through the door as the grenade burst with a vicious hiss.

He bolted upstairs as the hideous gas crept up after him.

The Englishman caught a fleeting glimpse of one of the mercenaries wearing a gas mask.

Dickhead, this kit must have one.

His hand scrabbled around the back of the webbing, pulling up the fastening straps and feeling for the mask—water bottle—rations—bingo.

He registered it as a PMK-2, not dissimilar to the GSR respirator he had been trained on as a Nod—a Royal Marine recruit.

He forced it over his face and lamented that it might be a good thing his head was bigger than its previous owner’s.

He forcefully exhaled and hoped the integrity of the mask held up.

The windows shattered under automatic fire from outside.

Connor knew if he cowered now, he’d die. He popped up and fired.

He caught the mercenary in the shoulder and saw him fall away.

The weight of fire storming through the entrance meant he couldn’t return fire.

The strong, sharp, acrid smell of propellant filled the air.

He spun the AK 105 in his hands to fire down the stairs without exposing himself.

The cries sounded upon the squeeze of his trigger.

He wondered why they hadn’t thrown explosive grenades but found them to be absent from his own webbing.

The harsh trill of Russian shouts sounded, and the firing stopped.

He knew this meant trouble.

And that he was trapped.

With his enemy congregated at or near to the entrance, he couldn’t shoot his way out.

The height of the first floor meant he risked a damaged knee or ankle if he jumped from the window—besides, they had posted at least one sentry out there.

Fuck’s sake, killed by neo-Nazis, and I am not even in Russia.

I know you’re a fictional character, Connor prayed, but if you do exist, then please save me, Mitch Rapp!

Snaps of gunfire ignited into a crescendo.

Then stopped.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

“Connoorrr.”

It took Connor a moment to realise the voice belonged to Yuri.

14

Yuri, having shot the Russian dogs in a kind of stupor, heard his voice slurring a little as he shouted, “Connor.”

“Yeah,” shot down the confident voice.

“I am coming up. Do not shoot me,” Yuri answered, enunciating his words.

The Ukrainian thumbed the catch lever on his AK105 and made his way up the stairs.

He turned into the room to see a frowning but seemingly uninjured Connor, who barked, “I should fucking shoot you. What took you so long?”

“Gunshot coma. The noise woke me up.”

The Englishman nodded and said, “A vasovagal shock response causing the body to shut down to protect itself. Had it myself not long back—I’ll let you off.”

“Thank you,” said Yuri, feeling a little more normal.

“Where are the women?”

“They are dead.”

Yuri saw the glimpse of anguish wash over his face.

“Because I—”

Yuri said, “They were dead as soon as those guys arrived.”

“The guy who shot you said he reported to a Marat Basilashvili. But I don’t know who these guys are. The Imperial Legion?” asked Connor, referring to the military wing of the Russian Imperial Movement.

“Not exactly. The rumour is that Putin ordered the RIM to banish a foreign fighter sub-unit.”

“So the Russian military would have deniability?”

“I do not think so.”

“What do you mean?”

“Even Putin does not want the bad press this unit brings. The RIM might say they do not recognise Ukrainians as a people, but they do not want their name attached to the hideous crimes of this unit.”

“What are they known as?”

“I have heard they are calling themselves ‘Die Söhne Dirlewangers’. Which means—”

“—The Sons of Dirlewanger. A homage to that daftee Oskar Dirlewanger. Pardon my jockanese.”

It impressed Yuri how much this fighting man seemed to know, though the former SS Officer was more than a mere ‘daftee’—a word he knew because Bruce used it in his presence.

Oskar Dirlewanger had been both a child rapist and the leader of the infamous 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, reputed by many to be ‘the evillest man in the SS’.

“Yes. But I do not think even most are German. There are many Polish, Swedes, Finns, Spanish and Americans in the unit.”

“How am I going to get across the border now?”

“Why should there be a change of plan?”

“Because there are dead Ukrainian women and Russian Nazis strewn around this place, and I am covered in claret.”

“Claret?”

“Blood, for fuck’s sake.”

“The bodies are here. My friend is picking you up over there. Go back and wait.”

He watched Connor’s chest rise and fall before handing Yuri the AK 105 and making his way back.

Nikita Lvov understood the irony that although he alone within the battle group knew they would face no initial resistance, he might have been the most nerve-shredded.

The gunner, eye sealed to the BPK-3-42 sight, whispered in his native tongue, “I cannot see any movement.”

Looking out the 1P-13 commander’s optical sight, Lvov murmured, “Keep your eye wide.”

The two men shared this ‘fighting compartment’ within the turret housing.

The driver’s box lay in the middle of the hull, just in front of them, with the troop compartment behind.

The Russian armoured troop captain felt the heat through the vibrations of the BTR-90 armoured personnel carrier, and he knew the next several hours could have a massive impact on his life.

Lvov had been taking Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine—the SZRU—money since just before his enlistment over seven years ago.

And Lvov had almost forgotten that one day, they would ‘want a return on their investment’, as the capitalist West would say.

It had been subtly put to him that were he to refuse, the knowledge of his supplemental income would extend from the SZRU to the FSB.

The tasking looked straightforward—take custody of a British aid worker and ‘lose him’ on the transport to the hand-off station.

He could feel the battle tension of the gunner next to him in the fighting compartment.

Lvov almost felt the urge to tell him there would be no battle to take Krynky—just a battle to hold on to it, which hopefully Lvov would not be present for.

As the T-72B3 main battle tanks hit the village without resistance, Lvov began an attempt to control his breathing.

He pressed the R-174 intercom and spoke, “Three minutes to disembarkation. Remember, only fire if being fired upon. We do not want bad propaganda.”

This was the first time he could remember preaching restraint—he hoped his men heeded it.

Connor prayed that the first man to breach the room wasn’t some trigger-happy youngster.

He heard the rumblings of the tanks and armoured vehicles almost ten minutes ago and the voices of the town’s clearance not long after.

Finally, he heard the stomps of boots and the Russian command in the building.

The dead body and the AK 105 lay in the corner on the opposite side of the room. The Englishman knelt and raised his hands high.

A flash of camouflage fatigues burst through the doors.

The olive shemaghs muffled the barked orders as the burly pair jabbed their black AK-12s at him.

Connor, as instructed, called out, “I am an English Aid Worker.”

The two men looked at him, the body, and then one another.

The taller of the pair squeezed the black box on his chest and spoke rapidly into a collar mic.

Another relay of shouts.

The pair dressed back at a pace as a hawkish-looking man entered.

Connor spied the four stars—two horizontal, two vertical—denoting the rank of Kapitán.

“My men say you’re English.”

“Yes.”

“International Legion?”

“Oh yeah, this is the uniform now.”

The officer smirked. “Just because you wear the uniform of an aid worker doesn’t mean you are one.”

The Russian threw back his hand, gesturing to the body.

Connor shrugged. “I was a Royal Marine Commando before I joined Britikrane Aid.”

“Better to be a warrior in the garden than a gardener at war.”

“Very poetic.”

“I am Captain Lvov. My men will search you now.”

They took both Connor’s phone and backpack off him. Yuri had said he expected Connor to receive them back but could not guarantee it.

To that end, he’d had a second SIM card folded into the collar of his left boot. If he lost his phone but could get another one, he could contact Jaime and Ciara.

The way the pair moved around him, without the searcher being within the firers’ arcs, hinted at a degree of professionalism.

When the back of the searcher’s hand met his groin, Connor slyly emitted a sexual moan.

The searcher snatched his hand away as Connor grinned.

He stood and head-butted Connor hard in the cheekbone as the expressionless officer looked on.

Connor said, “Note to self: Don’t make gay jokes around Ruskies.”

“Maybe do not make jokes at all.”

Connor kept his mouth shut.

Next, they rooted through his backpack. He held his nerve as one of the soldiers emptied the contents of the medical pouch.

A mild relaxation of relief came over him when the soldier let the pouch fall.

Lvov said, “Much spare clothing for an extraction? All waterproofed, too. Enough food for a week.”

Connor knew Lvov asked these questions for the benefit of his men.

The agent replied, “We always carry spare clothes and food for anyone needing them.”

Luckily, Lvov didn’t continue the charade by questioning why the clothes were the same size and just men’s.

The captain then issued a seemingly lengthy order in Russian, and the pair repacked the Herchel before taking him downstairs.

Everything in the black operations training regarding being held captive told him to be as inconspicuous as possible—to play the Grey Man.

However, he kept his eyes moving and absorbed what was happening around him.

Soldiers doubled past, taking up positions at various armoured vehicles.

The BTR-90 armoured personnel carriers reminded him of stern-looking frogs.

Seeing a pair of T-62 tanks at the column’s rear shocked him. He knew their manufacturing date to be over sixty years ago.

Connor also knew that American aid to the Ukrainian forces had slowed in the face of Republican opposition in Congress.

Their European supporters lacked the fiscal clout of the Americans, but he also knew that the sanctions harmed the Russians, too.

Jaime’s projections stated that the Russians might not have a war-fighting capability within two years at the current attrition rate.

That said, they might get by on a supply of Chinese armaments, but it seemed to Connor that they preferred to exhaust their own equipment before going down that route.

However, Connor noticed most of the infantry wearing the Ratnik combat gear—a helmet, body armour, a one-piece coverall, hearing protection, protective glasses, pads for knees and elbows integrated with the EMR camouflage the Russian infantry used.

Connor had read about the yet-to-be-released Sotnik suit; reports suggested that the exoskeleton would be able to stop a 50-calibre round—and the thought reminded Connor of the juggernaut character from the Call of Duty games.

Another captain approached Lvov, and they began exchanging words. Their conversation seemed to rise and fall in cadence, volume and tone.

Finally, the pair prodded Connor to move again.

They rounded the corner to be confronted by the Gaz Tigr, which, to Connor’s eyes, looked like the steroid-abusing father of the Land Rover Wolf.

Lvov turned to him, “Get in.”

Connor climbed into the crew compartment that smelled of fuel, sweat and leather. He watched his backpack get rammed tightly into the cargo area.

Though the foam poked out of rips in the dark seats, the interior seemed well organised.

The camouflage-patterned roof slid into the blue-painted, grainy steel of the cab, which sat on the black, grippy plastic of the floor.

He sat behind the driver as the engine began to vibrate his feet.

The Tigr pulled away, and Connor lamented on his first operation with Bruce.

It had been his assassination of Abeeb Zahid, a money launderer for, amongst others, Abdul Uddra, a Saudi Arabian multi-millionaire who helped fund al-Qaeda.

Bruce and Connor had staged a home invasion robbery, and Connor had killed the non-combatant with several hammer blows to the skull—many unnecessary.

During the operation, Connor had dismissed the need to see the evidence of Zahid’s wrongdoing with an, “It’s OK. I trust you.”

Bruce had replied, “I suggest you get out of that mindset.”

And now here he was, unarmed, in the custody of soldiers with automatic weapons, who were at least suspicious of him and might hate him.

All because he trusted Bruce, who told him to trust Yuri, who in turn told him to trust a stranger of a Russian officer.

The Tigr bumped along the cratered road, and Connor felt the need to sleep come over him.

He decided to give in to it and sacrifice a semblance of knowing his rough location once stopped for the benefit of being rested.

His eyes snapped open as the cabin shook under what Connor knew to be intense artillery and rocket fire.

He knew from experience that a soldier could quickly get used to indiscriminate and inaccurate bombardment after a while.

He watched the wild-eyed reactions of the two soldiers.

15

As the explosion shook the cab, Connor instantly knew they had been ambushed.

Not least because Lvov’s eyes snapped wider, and he began to issue orders.

The reverberation of automatic fire pounded the side of the armoured vehicle that Connor faced.

Looking out of the high, narrow, bullet-proof windows, Connor could see tree trunks indicating a forest.

Lvov screamed an order, and the Tigr shunted forward. Connor braced in anticipation.

The collision torqued his spine and braced his neck into the harness strap.

Go, go, go, he silently screamed.

The Tigr pushed forward, indicating it had smashed a path clear of the incapacitated vehicle in front.

He knew this to be a standard Ukrainian tactic used during the Russians’ initial offensive—take out the front and rear vehicles to hold the rest in position for a sustained, concentrated malleting with shoulder-fired weapons.

The Tigr picked up speed, and then a deafening crack lifted and spun the cabin.

The soldier in front of him dived headfirst into the side-turned-floor. His neck snapped—the crack audible even over the gunfire.

Connor scrambled to right himself. He began to strip the jacket off him.

Lvov snapped, “Stop.”

“I am no use to you dead, am I?” retorted Connor in kind while gesturing to his uncamouflaged torso.

The Russian nodded his acceptance.

While whipping on the jacket, Connor shouted, “Do you have smoke.”

“Take the belt—in the pockets,” said Lvov, gesturing to the webbing of the now-dead soldier.

Connor rapidly relieved the corpse of it and the AK 105.

The Englishman then shunted over to the backpack. He considered dragging it out in its entirety but decided it would hinder his immediate survival. Instead, he reached down to the side compartments and pulled out the medical pack with his credentials in before clipping it to his webbing.

He turned to the Russian. “I will open the back door and throw the smoke. We will escape out the turret hatch into the green zone.”

“Yes. OK.”

Connor forced the back door open and popped the smoke.

He could make out the increase in the intensity of firing.

“Go,” he shouted.

He followed the Russian officer out of the turret hatch, and both leopard-crawled hard through the undergrowth.

They headed towards the forest made of what Connor knew to be Scots pine trees.

However, the vegetation they crawled through included sections of hairy feather grass, the movement of which would be apparent even to an untrained civilian.

Connor kept checking back as he overtook the officer.

A whoosh followed by an eardrum-pounding crack turned the Tigr into a smoking wreck.

They crawled harder.

Connor did not want to have to fire on any soldier—either Ukrainian or Russian—in this conflict he felt had nothing to do with him.

However, he wouldn’t hesitate as a matter of survival.

The treeline seemed to get further away as his muscles burned with the effort.

He could hear the Ukrainian commands approaching. One check of the vehicle and they would initiate a search.

The pine trees seemed almost to open their embrace to the pair.

Machine-gunned rounds slammed into the trunks above them, showering them with bark.

Connor insisted, “They are raking the trees. They haven’t seen us. Keep crawling.”

Finally, they reached the taller sickle weed, which allowed them to switch to the faster monkey crawl.

After a time, they got up and ran deep into the forest.

For a moment, Connor felt glad that the Ukrainians lacked air superiority before it occurred to him that Russian aircraft might misidentify them.

After a few minutes of running, the officer slowed to a halt and turned to him.

“What do you want?”

“The plan hasn’t changed. You get me into Crimea. That was the arrangement.”

“You won’t survive in Crimea. You can just go back. Give yourself up to the Ukrainian forces.”

“Why the change of heart? Because we have been shot at?”

“I was to give you over to military intelligence.”

The Englishman’s heart sank.

“Yuri planned this?”

“No. He did not know.”

“Then why?”

“They intercepted some of my transmissions. I have a contact inside the GRU. I came forward before they came for me—told them I had been developing Yuri as my agent. They believed me—bringing you to them would have made hard that belief.”

“And now the ambush allows you to claim I got away?”

“Yes.”

“I am not going back. The Zeigarnik Effect will do my box in.”

“Who is this Zeigarnik?”

“We don’t have time. We—”

“No. Tell me.”

“For fuck’s sake, he was a Lithuanian psychologist. He observed that waiters can remember open orders but almost instantly forget when the order is closed. So I am not leaving just for it to torment me the rest of my life.”

“You are crazy. I am giving you a chance for your life back. I cannot take you into Crimea.”

“How far can you take me?”

Lvov looked at him for a moment. “I cannot take you further. I can give you this.”

The Russian officer removed his rucksack, his MP-443 Grach pistol, and a couple of magazines and handed them to Connor, who pulled back the pistol’s top slide a few millimetres to check it had a chambered round.

He slipped it into his waistband.

“In the bag, there is a navigation device and sixty-thousand roubles in different notes. A little food, water and a map.”

The Englishman knew that the Russian authorities had now initiated a ban on the hryvnia being used in Crimea.

“GLONASS?” said Connor, referring to the Russian equivalent of GPS.

He winced, knowing it was a stupid question.

“Of course it is.”

“OK.”

“If I make it back, I will tell them that I think you gave yourself up to the Ukrainians. But if they capture you, it will be a one-way journey to Lubyanka.”

Connor knew he didn’t mean Lubyanka literally—the belly of the former KGB Headquarters in Lubyanka was synonymous with ‘hard interrogation’.

“Tell them you left me unconscious in the Tigr. I’ll worry about the rest.”

“OK, Englishman. Udachi,” said Lvov—Good Luck.

With that, he turned to leave as Connor took a deep breath before sprinting to the Russian officer.

Connor’s right arm snapped around Lvov’s throat in a crushing rear-naked choke, smashing his right knee into the Russian’s to topple them both forward to the floor.

With Lvov now in a spluttering turtle position, Connor hooked his heel on the inside of Lvov’s right thigh before spinning him and his prey to face the sky.

The Englishman’s musculature strained to control his thrashing victim.

Lvov reached back to press his fingers into Connor’s closed eyes before abandoning the tactic to fruitlessly attempt to use both hands to pull the throttling forearm away.

The captain’s fingers slipped off with the gurgling.

Then, still.

Connor’s hips bumped the unconscious Lvov off him before quickly prying away his left boot.

Lvov began to stir as Connor took out the MP-443 Grach pistol and slipped the boot over it.

Not the best suppressor, but it’ll do, thought Connor as he fired a single round into the base of Lvov’s skull.

Connor knew that certain death from a choke or strangle could take several minutes, and reliable neck-snapping techniques only belonged in Hollywood films.

And he still didn’t know if the enemy lurked nearby, hence the makeshift suppressor.

Though he took no pleasure in killing Lvov, he also knew it to be professionally irresponsible to let go of a self-confessed double agent.

Bruce McQuillan walked down Jerusalem’s fawn, cobbled streets just as the night began to cool away the day.

He admired the beautiful graffiti on the roller shutter shop doors of the Machane Yehuda Market as the hum of the bars and restaurants floated through the air.

He knew the potential danger he was in.  In most countries, no signs of being shadowed would be a positive thing. However, Shin Bet and Mossad might be the most practised agencies at surveillance and counter-surveillance and perhaps the most technologically advanced, too—maybe he couldn’t see them.

He had taken all precautions with his phone, and Jaime had assured him that if he made calls to him, they would not be traceable if the phone was confiscated.

He walked down and joined the throng to watch the Hallelujah Night Show—a light show commemorating the story of King David within an enclave of brick and stone.

Bruce didn’t want to use his phone in the relative quiet as the crowd waited for the show to begin.

The show began, and Bruce fought to maintain his tactical awareness whilst watching the hypnotic images appear and transform on the brick monument over the musical accompaniment.

As the show finished with a flourish, Bruce took advantage of the excited crowd’s chatter to call Jaime.

He knew he’d be at least safe from parabolic listening devices.

Jaime answered with a duress challenge, “How are you?”

“Same as usual,” answered Bruce; ‘Same as usual’ meant he was not under duress, whereas ‘Same as always’ meant he was.

“Yes?”

“Cross-reference any training exchanges between the Quds Force and Russian Spetsnaz. Specifically, anyone with a dual citizenship or dual heritage.”

“OK,” said the digitalised voice. “I have lost contact with him.”

“Where?”

“The pass-over point.”

“What did the friend say?”

“He hasn’t been in contact.”

Bruce felt his diaphragm ice.

Yuri stated that the SZRU had only allowed him a single asset—a Russian captain named Lvov.

If Connor had been captured or killed, their chances of discovering the depth of a Russian-HAMAS-Iran connection would disappear with him.

He hadn’t yet taken over as chief of the renewed and updated Section D—the old MI6 covert political actions and paramilitary group—and thus couldn’t call on any of their assets should they have them.

Besides, O’Hara had asked Ciara for an asset in front of Parker; Bruce would have had to assume that he would have explored other options within SIS.

And though he could call on The Chameleon Project assets, none of them had the contacts Connor had in Ukraine or the inbuilt legend like he had.

He thought of Alexey Orlov.

During Orlov’s tenure as the head of the SVR, he and Bruce had a strange relationship of overt hostility punctuated by acts of mutual benefit.

He could not yet be sure of Orlov’s current place on the conflict mapping diagram of Russian politics.

Bruce kept his eyes scanning as the throng began to pour out of the exit.

The trio stood like poised hyenas waiting for a leopard to make its kill before moving in.

“Let’s give him twenty-four hours, acknowledge?”

“Acknowledged.”

“Anything else?”

“No.”

“Out.”

Bruce began to walk briskly.

16

Connor had marched hard through the forest, skirting around Oleshky Sands National Nature Park, and now it ominously began to peter out.

The Russian cold gently placed its jaws around him as the combat adrenaline faded.

He had over two hundred and twenty-five miles to travel to get to Sevastopol.

And now officially behind the Russian lines, he knew it would be over if caught. Unlike the Ukrainians, the Russians did not have an ‘international’ brigade that took Westerners, and Connor’s Russian was nowhere near good enough to pass as even a monosyllabic native.

As soon as he broke out into the open, he’d have to avoid the wartime suspicion of the civilian population, Russian soldiers and surveillance drones if they were being deployed this far back.

He knew his contingency planning should have been better in remembering the adage that ‘no plan survives contact with the enemy’.

He couldn’t wait in these woods and didn’t fancy giving himself up to the Russians.

Nor did he wish to kill Russian soldiers simply for being soldiers.

Connor knew that warring nations being marked ‘good versus evil’ was the premise of Tolkien fantasies.

And even if Putin’s ‘special operation’ was a scourge of evil, Connor understood that conscription of Russian men had been put in place.

However, Connor had enough self-awareness now to know he would murder any combatant standing in the way of his completing his mission.

From his vantage point, he could see the tiny hamlet of Stara Maiachka teeming with military activity.

Connor began to breathe more deeply as he contemplated taking advantage of the melee of war and walking through it.

He remembered servicemen in uniform walking through Camp Roberts in Kandahar when he had been in the Marines and no one stopping them unless they looked like they were looking for someone.

The other option would be to stalk through a rural landscape that only provided sporadic cover.

He would’ve waited until the dead of night, but given the increase in the Russian military budget and being this close to an actual operation, it meant a high probability he’d be pinged by night vision.

He stood and made his way towards the hamlet in a patrolling manner.

His heart hammered as he hit the narrow-metalled road as three BMP-1Ps rumbled up it.

These infantry fighting vehicles looked like slim tanks and outnumbered their more advanced successors, the BMP-2 and 3s.

A head poked out of the low turret. How the balaclava wrapped around the bulging communication earpieces with a fully exposed face reminded Connor of a sinister Tellytubby.

The Englishman picked up his chin and shouted, “Ura!”—the Russian version of ‘Oorah’.

The reply of, “Go fuck yourself,” in English startled him, but he felt relief when the convoy rolled past.

Earlier, he had checked the rank slide on his jacket—the rank insignia of a single horizontal band denoted that of a senior sergeant, the equivalent of a British colour sergeant.

He considered this to be a good thing overall.

No insignia meant no autonomy from anyone; he could be accosted or ordered by anyone else above a private.

Much higher in rank meant he might be uncovered as a fraud on sight from upper ranks being known due to their seniority and that there were fewer of them than lower ranks.

Connor swilled saliva around his gums as he approached the bustling hub of war logistics. When the body’s ‘fight or flight’ response was triggered, it diverted its liquids to its survival functions, causing dry mouth. Saliva around the gums could trick a person’s physiology into lessening the fear response.

Another technique was to fully embody the character he wished to present, in this case, a pissed-off senior sergeant who had been sent back with a message.

As he entered the maze of shouts, engines, diesel fumes, boots and clanging, he felt glad that the Russian eyes only flicked over him.

He spotted a gaggle of privates smoking and marched over.

They stiffened on his approach.

He pointed to one’s cigarette and beckoned.

“Pozhaluysta,” he said—’Please.’

The soldier looked at him a moment and gave him one.

As the private lifted the lighter for him, Connor—who hadn’t had a cigarette for around a decade, said to himself, Don’t fucking cough.

Despite this, he had to latch a heave as the acrid smoke raked his tonsils.

He blew it out, feigning relief, before saying, “Spasiba”—’Thank you.’

As he walked off, one of the soldiers threw a flurry of Russian so fast he couldn’t even get the gist of what was being said.

Instead, without looking back, he gave a dismissive wave.

The voice got loud and faster, and Connor’s heartbeat rocketed as the thump of boots came behind him.

He knew he was fucked—he’d never make it out by going on the offensive here.

Fuck’s sake, captured by Russians, he thought as the soldier’s hand landed on his shoulder.

He turned to see the private holding out a pack of cigarettes for him.

Connor took them with a “Spasiba, moy drug.”—’Thank you, my friend.’

The soldier smiled and turned to join his comrades.

Connor’s eyes scanned as he walked through the hamlet.

He knew it to be a bad idea to simply walk out of the town. Besides, he couldn’t walk all the way to Crimea in the time available.

Down at the far end of this military staging area outside an eighteen by twenty-four feet canvas tent, sat a UAZ-452—a light utility vehicle that reminded Connor of the ugliest looking 1960s ice cream van splashed in olive green imaginable.

He knew the Russians had lost at least a hundred of these vehicles since the onset of hostilities.

He began to march purposefully towards it and floated on a wave of surprised relief that no one seemed to be taking notice of him.

As he got closer, he could hear what sounded like a briefing being given in the tent.

He swept around to the driver’s side and tried the door—it crept open.

Keys in the ignition.

He slid his rifle across onto the passenger seat and got in.

The cabin smelled of hard plastic, foam, cigarettes, coffee and ammunition.

The large, black, narrow steering wheel reminded him of the Mercedes logo.

A household fan had been taped to the dashboard.

As his fingers touched the keys, the scene of Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein being blown up inside his car in the film ‘Casino’ jumped into Connor’s mental theatre.

He spent an extra ten seconds familiarising himself with the pedal layout.

He turned the ignition, and the engine came alive.

The UAZ-452 pulled away like a cantankerous old horse, and the Englishman’s eyes kept flicking to the rear mirror.

It would get called in, he knew, but surmised there would be a thorough search first.

The large, metalled road of the T2210 began to escort him at speed south.

And he knew he had to get a message to Jaime—and not get captured.

The twenty-three-year-old Khalil Ali led his Wahda—Unit—in the stalking of the tall fifty-odd-year-old man.

He was one of the leaders of a new militant group known as The Lion’s Den, based in the West Bank city of Nablus.

Though small in number, Khalil and his friends could use social media to their advantage.

He remembered the respect he gained from the circulation of a video of his drive-by shooting on an IDF outpost near Nablus.

Though no soldiers died on that occasion, it had encouraged him.

He had done drive-bys, stabbings and robberies until the IDF finally captured him during a raid on the Aqabat Jabr refugee camp in Jericho.

He remembered being presented with the evidence they had on him and given a choice: spend his youth in prison or turn informant for the Israeli authorities.

He had chosen the latter.

To his shock, his new handler, Avi, had told him that he would have to do a stint in prison to ward off suspicion on his release.

Since then, he had been allowed to operate at a certain level in exchange for information.

And he had correctly surmised that the more valuable the information he provided, the more the security forces allowed him to get away with.

And they encouraged his deeper involvement with the various Palestinian militant groups springing up in and around the West Bank.

And though Avi never stated it outright, they both knew that ‘deeper involvement’ meant more actions against the IDF and maybe Israeli citizens.

And now Avi had given him a package that included several photos of the man he was following, along with the warning not to take him alone.

Khalil had heeded his advice and taken Makram and Mustafa with him—two tough guys he trusted.

They had lost the tall man at the show, but Makram’s sharp eyes picked him out in the streets.

Now, they tracked him.

The problem was, where to strike?

He had been expressly forbidden from killing the guy—a mugging had been the order of the day, with his phone being the prize.

Khalil knew the likelihood of them completely isolating the target to be near zero, but they couldn’t strike with this many people around.

Khalil felt a little like an agent from a Hollywood movie as he directed Mustafa and Makram through his Bluetooth earpiece.

“Makram, you take over as lead watcher.”

“Yes, Khalil.”

He watched his friends complete the switch as he hung back.

The crowd around the target grew sparser as people peeled off into various car parks and side streets.

This presented a problem, as they could become easier to spot now, as they followed their quarry along the pavement skirting the dusty road of Ma’alot Lr Saint David’s Street.

Khalil watched the man put his hands on his knees and take a few deep breaths before turning left onto the ascent of Abu Tor Street.

Mustafa’s voice came alive in Khalil’s earpiece, “We are going to lose sight of him. I will run.”

“No. He is tired. You saw. If you run, you will be right on his ass when you turn the corner. Relax, he will only be halfway up.”

“You’re right, Khalil. As you wish.”

“I will take over the lead, Mustafa.”

With that, he sped up to pass his friend.

He rounded the corner onto Abu Tor, and the cold wind of shock blew a hole through him.

The road was empty except for a large green skip, a buckled bus shelter and a parked car at the top.

The man had disappeared.

He must have spotted them and ran up the road.

“Quick. He’s running,” snapped Khalil as he sprinted.

Halfway past the skip, he couldn’t slow himself as the target zapped up from behind it.

Khalil barely registered the hand-gripped rock as it smashed his lights out.              

As Connor drove, he fished the cigarettes out of his pocket.

He looked at them. You might die at any moment. May as well.

He rejected the thought in the same instant—Don’t be beef.

He threw them out the window.

To his knowledge, there were no turnoffs for a while—he literally could not improve his situation other than driving at a reasonable speed.

As he observed the lights of the rural villages illuminating the dark, he began to wonder how much agency a man had over his life.

This thought thread had been more frequent recently.

As a younger man, he was convinced an individual had complete control of the sails—and anything good or bad after one’s initial hand was down to them.

Though he still believed in the adage, ‘Take care of your habits, and your habits will take care of your future,’ he also saw the validity of some of Marcus Aurelius’s observations.

The Roman emperor mused that a man is like a dog tethered to the wagon of his life—he can either run beside it or be dragged by it.

Strangely, the thought calmed him.

This dissipated in the face of the headlights coming towards him.

He glanced at the AK.

He slowed a little and rhythmed his breathing.

The two BRDM-2 armoured scout vehicles blew straight past him.

He began considering his options: He could stay on the T2210 and eventually hit the depot where the vehicles had come from or attempt to turn off onto one of the less used roads.

He wondered what the likely assumption was when it was discovered the UAZ-452 had gone missing.

Indeed, they might think it had been taken on an errand to the front rather than stolen by a foreign national on the way to Crimea.

With the signage appearing for the E97 highway, he decided to take it for the sake of speed for a while.

However, he knew it to be a fool’s hope that he could simply drive a military vehicle all the way down to Crimea.

That said, Connor had studied that in lengthy conflicts—which this one now was—normality would return close to the frontline if that war frontier held steady enough.

His lack of Russian annoyed him—he had allocated time to studying it, thinking there might be a possibility he’d be sent back to the area, but his operational tempo had been so high he hadn’t the mental resources to acquire fluency.

He comforted himself that even if he had, no amount of studying would have allowed him to feign being a native Russian.

Jaime’s briefing package stated that checkpoints were not normal past a fifteen-kilometre ‘combat zone’ behind the border.

If he could find a civilian vehicle, he might be OK. By the time it was reported, he’d be miles away.

He’d be confronted if he stayed in the UAZ-452 and hit another military staging area.

From his map study, he knew there to be turnings for several villages dotted along the highway—but several had been converted into quasi-military bases.

The flatness of the land worked both ways; Connor could maybe ascertain if a village was being used by the Russian forces at a distance.

He spotted one such side road, dimmed the lights and headed in.

He hoped that all the drones were being used at the front.

The FPV—First Person View—drones could now follow their victims into trench and tunnel systems, with some having the capability of releasing acid liquid in addition to frags and mines.

The former Royal Marine trundled along the track, watching for any lights.

No illuminations denoting military activity, just a single window light.

He pulled the UAZ-452 into a shallow, dirt lay-by and cut the engine.

Sliding the AK105 off the passenger seat, he went through the motions of wiping his prints off the steering wheel.

He kept the assault rifle down by his leg as he stalked across the grasslands to the village.

He hoped that one of the vehicles had the key already inside—in a small rural community, it might be the done thing.

And gun ownership was also the done thing in rural communities, he thought.

He asked himself if he would shoot a civilian to steal his vehicle—it disconcerted him that he wasn’t sure.

Connor kept his eye on the lit window.

Suddenly, he thought, What if there were dogs? Every fucker in the countryside had dogs.

He took a knee to conduct a listening stop.

No dogs—just the rustle of the feather grass and a noise that sounded vaguely like the croaking of frogs.

He crept forward and crested around one of the barns.

On the far side stood a row of thatch-roofed barns mirroring the one he now stood beside. In the forecourt separating them lay an RSM 2375 tractor. Even in the low illumination of a tiny barn night light, he could tell it to be red, which reminded him of Optimus Prime in vehicle form.

Over at the far left end, Connor couldn’t believe seeing what looked to be a relatively new Mitsubishi L200 pick-up truck.

He found himself walking towards it as if by a magnetic pull, albeit with his eyes scanning.

He kept flicking glances to the house in the right corner, too.             

Ghost walking, he peered in, and his heart soared upon seeing the keys in the cup holder.

If asked about the existence of guardian angels at that moment, he might have replied in the affirmative.

As his hand touched the door handle, a one-syllable, nasal honk froze him.

He turned to face a coal-eyed, charcoal-feathered goose.

The stare lasted a hissing moment before it leapt at Connor with a war squawk and flapping wings.

The former amateur boxer punched it hard.

Instead of curtailing the attack, the blow seemed to transform the mental goose into the bird family’s Agent Smith, as seemingly the world’s allocation of geese attacked him in a fit of feathers, webbed feet, shrieks and snapping.

17

Khalil’s nightmare began on waking.

At first, he couldn’t see out of open eyes or move his limbs.

The thrum beneath him let him know a vehicle carried him.

It came back to him, tracking the target who disappeared only to reappear when Khalil ran.

Where were Mustafa and Makram? Were they here with him?

He felt the vehicle slow, and the smooth vibration switched to a rocky rumble.

Finally, a stop.

His ears sharpened.

When the doors at the front of the vehicle opened and shut, he realised he lay in the back cargo compartment.

The trunk opened, pouring cold air on him.

Vices seized his ankles, and then he flew.

The ground smacked his face, shoulder and leg.

A voice cut through the air. Not local. English maybe. At least British.

“Do you know why I have left your blindfold on?”

“N… No.”

“Because I don’t want you to see my friend’s face. If you answer the questions, you’ll get out of here unharmed.”

Khalil’s mind began to whirr.

Was this a test? Was this Shin Bet? Why would they smash a rock into his face? No, this was real.

Another voice, this one local, said, “You are Khalil Ali. Your mother and father own a textile shop on the outskirts of Nablus. You were arrested two years ago in connection with activities taken under the banner of The Lion’s Den. Served a four-month sentence in Gilboa. Miraculously, you seemed to have either turned master criminal or reformed character, as you have never been arrested since.”

The British voice now, “We know you’re an informant, Khalil. You don’t have to deny it. And that information can stay between us, but we need to know the name and description of your handler.”

Khalil took a moment to answer. What harm could it do? His handler’s name would be a false name anyway. But what if—

A boot to his stomach made him belch out the word “Avi.”

“Describe him.”

“I… I… round face, round cheeks, shaved head. Sometimes he is clean-shaven, sometimes he has stubble on his head and face.”

“What colour is the stubble?”

“What?”

“What. Colour. Is. The. Stubble?”

“Red and white, kinda.”

Nothing happened for a few long moments.

Then the fabric of Khalil’s shirt, bunched under a strong hand at the shoulder, hoisted him to a sitting position.

“I am going to remove your blindfold for a second. Keep your head forward. If you look around, then you die. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Repeat what I said.”

“When you take off my blindfold, I will die if I look around.”

“Correct.”

His blindfold slid over his head, setting him squinting against the moonlight.

The tall trees surrounding them seemed to be keeping watch.

The phone screen illuminated his face with the image of his handler, Avi.

“Is that him?” asked his kidnapper.

“Yes.”

The man jutted his chin, and the fabric obscured his sight.

“When did he make contact with you?”

“Came to my house with a bottle of kosher wine and Kneidlach,” spat Khalil. “How do you think? I was arrested.”

“How did they break you?”

“Three hours of fucking Leonard Cohen music would break anyone.”

“You’re funny, Khalil, but you better start answering the questions.”

“They don’t pay me. They let me operate.”

“Let you operate, and you sell your friends out?”

Khalil laughed. “You think they care about the Palestinian Authority or The Lion’s Den? They want HAMAS—and we don’t want HAMAS in the West Bank. Those super religious idiots with their ‘from the river to the sea’ will never get what they want. They are just making it harder for the rest of us.”

“You don’t believe in the cause, Khalil?”

“I believe we should have our own nation. I believe in freedom. I believe in the word that neither this Israeli Government nor HAMAS believes in—compromise.”

“You ever consider that your handler doesn’t believe in the same compromise you do?”

“He has always treated me well.”

“He’s not going to mistreat you, is he? He’s your handler.”

“So,” said Khalil. “Give me your… sales pitch.”

“We can’t offer you money, Khalil. Luckily, you’re a smart man, so we can return you unharmed. You tell them you lost me.”

“He will just ask me to find you again. It is the phone they want.”

“My phone, eh?” said the British man. “Maybe we can work something out.”

If not for the precariousness of the situation, Connor would have felt vaguely ridiculous.

He bobbed and weaved in his boxing stance in between throwing short, tight punches at the wall of beaks and feathers.

I am going to lose a fight to a pack of fucking geese, he thought desperately.

The booming gunshot dispersed his squawking nemeses, revealing a Mosin–Nagant shotgun.

The lady at the other end of it stood upright and still. He couldn’t quite make out her features, so he couldn’t ascertain her age.

She barked something at him in harsh, rapid Russian he couldn’t quite catch.

He answered, “Govorite medlenneye pozhaluysta.”—Speak slower, please.

“Ona! You are British.”

Her reply—in near-native English—stunned him for a moment.

“Yes.”

“Unload your weapon. Including the bullet in the chamber. Slowly.”

Connor noticed the barrel of Mosin–Nagant didn’t waver off his centre of mass.

He followed her instructions.

“Put the weapon on the ground and throw the magazine over here—not at me, or I’ll shoot you in your stomach.”

Again, he complied.

“Any other weapons?”

“I have a Grach pistol in my belt.”

Under her instructions, the MP-443 transformed into the same state as the AK 105.

After making him show beneath his jacket, wrists and ankles, she asked, “What are you doing here?”

“I was asked if I would rather fight a hundred geese or one human-sized goose. I came here to find out.”

“You can either be funny with a hole in your chest or tell me and remain alive.”

“I am concerned that if I tell you the truth, you’ll think I am being funny, and I’ll end up with a hole in my chest.”

“What choice do you have?”

Connor saw her point.

“I am a British secret agent. My boss has reason to believe that elements within Russia helped to arm and coordinate the October seventh attacks. He also has reason to believe that the Caucasus region will be a flashpoint in kicking off World War III. That’s where I am trying to get to.”

“And your boss decides the best way to send you is through a war zone? Surely Turkey would have been safer?”

“For deniability reasons, it had to be this way,” he said. “Besides, the geese might be just as ferocious over there.”

A goose squawked its protest.

“I admire a man who can joke even with a shotgun pointed at him,” she said before her eyes narrowed. “But why does that have anything to do with you trying to steal my truck?”

“I wanted to switch vehicles, as I am sure the one I have stolen has been called in. I am aware of drones.”

“How were you going to hide the stolen vehicle after you had stolen mine?”

“I hadn’t worked that part out yet.”

She nodded. “I find it difficult to believe they would send you to stop World War III.”

“Difficult or impossible?”

She didn’t answer. After a few moments, she lowered the barrel, and he released a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.

She said, “Bring the vehicle up the track. You need to park in the barn to avoid it being discovered.”

“Why are you helping me?”

“You English have the phrase, ‘Do not look a gift horse in the mouth,’ yes?”

“Yes.”

“Then stop asking questions and do what I tell you to do.”

Avi Teper stood in the stripped-out, dusty room of what had once been between a drinks cellar on Ezer Yoldot Street.

He felt the coolness through his green, corded shirt, a few buttons open at the collar.

Shin Bet had numerous places permanently ‘To Let’ throughout Israel acting as safe houses, meeting places and sometimes interrogation suites.

He scratched at his beard—bits of white had come through the red a few years back when he hadn’t been long past forty. He had shaved it off, only for colleagues to forthrightly tell him to grow it back—the thicker, the better.

Avi didn’t know why he had been tasked to obtain Bruce McQuillan’s phone exactly and didn’t ask for clarification.

Just as he hadn’t known why he’d been tasked to pass on information to a codename of ‘Rephidim’ the last eighteen months.

Avi doubted he even met the man, let alone knew his name. He simply handed over whatever information he had been given to Beni Mizrahi, the owner of the Meteorite Motorcycle chain.

Avi knew Beni could not have been ‘The Raven’.

Meteorite Motorcycles had gone international in the last half-decade, though the fifty-two-year-old had never shown any activism either way.

Before his expansion, Beni was always at the shop or The Hotelier pub—a renowned biker bar.

Now, he seemed to be almost permanently on holiday or tending to one of his international branches—not exactly in keeping with being a double agent within the volatile West Bank.

Besides, Avi would not have been allowed to see his face if he was some super high-level agent.

In the beginning, some of these exchanges were as backwards as thin strips of paper rolled up and placed inside an emptied capsule within a medicine bottle or as advanced as an encrypted digital storage device, handed over without a word in Beni’s back office.

As time passed, Avi began to wonder who this double agent was.

Paranoia had kicked in around the Black Saturday attacks. What if Rephidim was a triple agent?

Only his esteem for his secret boss’s expertise prevented Avi from panicking.

Of course, he had heard of the ‘Alastiratijiu’, some top-level mole, but thought it likely to be a bogeyman-type myth to explain how certain attacks went under Israel’s nose.

Avi would have resented being turned into a mere messenger boy had it not been for the authority of the man sending him on these errands and the promise of a transfer to a powerful position beneath him.

And so, when Khalil called to say he had lost the target, Avi, stung with fear and disappointment, insisted they meet to ensure he was not under duress.

Avi’s training taught him that you had to protect yourself no matter how long you’d run an informant or how familiar you got.

One instructor had announced, “They have turned on their own people. Do not be naïve to think they would not do the same to you.”

Avi had been proud of his handling of Khalil—the young terrorist had begun informing to save himself from years in prison. Then Avi knew Khalil began to revel in his reputation for evading the IDF. Finally, Khalil saw HAMAS as his target.

However, informants were snakes, and snakes could turn without warning.

To that end, Avi always carried a Glock-19 in his back waistband and posted a discreet guard outside.

His phone beeped—a text meant Khalil had arrived alone.

A call would have meant he wasn’t.

He heard the Arab’s tentative footsteps. It’s good he still feels nervous, thought Avi.

Khalil walked down and appeared at the base of the steps.

Avi said, “I just had to check that you were safe.”

“Of course I am.”

“What happened?”

“We just lost him in the crowd.”

Avi’s annoyance flicked him, and he said, “I told you to have eyes on him.”

“We did. Fucking tourists getting in the way.”

“You don’t think he spotted you?”

“No.”

The Israeli’s eyes narrowed. “You sound very certain.”

“There is no such thing as ‘very certain’. You either are or you are not. And I am.”

“Fair enough.” Avi smiled. He did like the Palestinian’s spirit. “That means you can strike another time—unless you feel you’re undertrained, in which case we can assign it to someone else.”

Avi braced himself but kept his concern off his face—he couldn’t assign anyone else.

“I can do this. It won’t happen again.”

“Good, because we need that phone.”

“I will get it to you.”

18

Bruce walked into his hotel room, closed the door and stood still for a few moments.

Nothing.

He made a sweep of the room. Once happy, he checked on the hair he had secured between the pair of ‘No Smoking’ stickers he had placed on either side of the closet opening.

Broken.

He checked the back of the flat-screen television mounted on the wall. A similarly placed hair remained intact.

Under Bruce’s instruction, Jaime had designed a bracket holder that could be fitted behind a television, a fridge or similar. It could hold a laptop or something smaller, like a handgun, escaping scrutiny to all but the keenest-eyed.

Bruce had Darren O’Reilly at Verbatim Cyber Securities manufacture a limited number—a man he once helped by identifying his daughter’s real killer when the police couldn’t or wouldn’t.

Whoever had entered the room had accessed his decoy laptop, on which he kept sensitive but not too sensitive information.

Bruce took out his scanner and performed another sweep for visual and audio bugs.

None—assumingly, they got what they wanted.

He began to think of what he would do in their shoes. That they had downloaded the information from the decoy laptop would be a given.

If it had been him, he might have installed monitoring software.

Bruce reached in and lifted it out.

Connor switched off the engine of the UAZ-452 in the barn.

The rectangular gap in the roof lit pooled moonlight puddles over the hay bales and oak joists.

He got out and made his way to the farmhouse.

He did not know why this strange woman would believe his story or seem willing to help.

The thought crossed his mind that her sending him to move the UAZ-452 gave her time to call the authorities.

He knew he had to let it play out—he couldn’t simply drive off if she were to call the authorities; they might simply drone strike him or, more likely, ambush him by helicopter.

He didn’t fancy his chances on foot either—the Russian version of a BOLO would be posted in and around the surrounding areas.

He might have risked it, but the woman’s English gave him pause for thought.

Despite himself, he knocked on the heavy, slatted door.

After a moment, it opened, and she stood there, “What are you knocking for? Your English politeness despite trying to steal my vehicle?”

“Force of habit,” replied Connor. This was true—in the shared Royal Marine accommodation, it was considered sacrilege not to knock before entering someone else’s room for no other reason than the occupant might be masturbating.

She stepped back, and he entered.

He had been expecting a dank room of sparse amenities.

The yellow of the walls and ceiling hit him first.

A smell of fresh linen floated throughout.

He glanced at her—he’d put her as well-kept and in her early fifties.

Her tan hair fell haphazardly to her shoulders and had perhaps lost a little of its youthful volume.

Her lower face formed a triangle of pointed cheekbones and a chin, framing straight teeth.

Her crow’s feet highlighted her blue eyes.

Her face looked vaguely familiar.

She brushed past him, asking, “Would you like tea? I’ll make it the English way?”

“You hoping the authorities get here before I finish it?”

She turned on the stove, placed the kettle on it and looked at him. “If you believe that, you can always leave. I am no longer holding the shotgun.”

“And I am surprised you would trust me so quickly.”

“I am sure you could have come up with a better lie. The fact that you did not tells me you are telling the truth—or delusional.”

“Pretty spurious reason to let a strange man into your home.”

“You sound like you’re trying to tell me something,” she said, placing the tea in front of him.

“Thank you,” he said sincerely, just noticing how tired he was.

He looked at the tea for an anxious moment before watching her hand snatch it from him with a “Heaven’s sake” as she took a mouthful and handed it back.

He smiled and took a sip, noticing the faint lipstick mark on it.

“Why do you speak English so well?”

She sat in front of him and said, “Because I lived there for many years.”

“Doing what?”

“Writing poetry.”

It took a moment to dawn on Connor.

“Fuck me, you’re Anna Kostenko.”

She merely stared her confirmation before saying, “So you know why I might not be inclined to call the authorities.”

A vertigo-inducing surreality came over him—even eighteen months ago, he wouldn’t have known who she was.

Connor, Tom and Luke had been in Amsterdam attending a party thrown by the now-deceased European drug lord Raymond Van Der Saar.

As Connor and Tom waited in the hotel’s downstairs reception for their younger cousin, Connor picked up the poetry book left out on the table.

There had been one poem in particular that had struck a chord, written by the woman who now sat in front of him.

He had Googled her to read, amongst other things, that she had written poems warning of Russian authoritarianism metastasising into totalitarianism.

Connor remembered that Kostenko was actually several years older than what he had just pitched her to be.

And he recalled looking at her shaven-headed images and thinking, She’s a gorgeous older bird.

He asked her, “Why are you here? Aren’t you flirting with the Gulags?”

“It is amazing what hair and a passport under your real name can do.”

“I always thought you suited the Sinead O’Connor look.”

“You do not like my hair now?”

“I like it fine.”

“Good.”

That paused Connor for a moment before he asked, “Why are you here?”

“This is my uncle’s farm.”

“Where’s your uncle?”

“He died three days ago.”

“You came back to bury him?”

“I came back two years ago to help him. The man was in his eighties.”

“I’m surprised no one has noticed you’ve gone missing.”

“I have taken steps back from public life in the last few years. And I still keep in touch with a few people via video calls—they do not have to know where I am.”

Connor said, “I read somewhere that you were not necessarily opposed to reuniting Crimea with Russia. That true?”

“That was true. If it is the people’s will, then it is their will.” She sighed. “That was before I witnessed the persecution of the Ukrainian people after the annexation.”

Connor didn’t want to point out the obviousness of that happening. Instead, he sipped his tea and said, “I read one of your poems—Fractured Sky—stuck with me afterwards.”

She smiled. “I was younger then.”

“I do not think you look old now.”

“I move a lot every day. Seems to help.”

“Women from this part of the world seem to have good genetics.”

She squinted at him and said, “My uncle was around your size—I will lay some of his clothes out. You will wash and sleep here.”

“I can sleep on the sofa. I wouldn’t feel comfortable sleeping in your just-deceased uncle’s bed.”

“But you’d wear his clothes?”

“Good point.”

“Are you married?”

“No.”

“Then there is no need to sleep in my uncle’s bed… or the sofa.”

Connor felt his face flush.

Moshen Khalimov sat on the emerald stool in front of the tap.

The thirty-seven-year-old wondered how many times he had performed the Wudhu—ritual washing before prayer.

Now, in terms of his absolutions in this Cypriot Mosque, he reckoned it would have been around two thousand if not given his profession and schedule over the years—he knew the actual number to be way under half that.

At first, he felt guilty but reminded himself of the ladder of Islam: Prayer and praising Allah are the bottom rung, and helping the poor and needy climbs you higher until you reach the top rung of Jihad—a place where Khalimov had perched for many years.

The Iranian of Azerbaijani ancestral heritage wore a dark blue thawb, which, though short-sleeved, flowed down his tall, broad body.

The dark-haired, dark-bearded Khalimov remembered a light-hearted comment made by a masseuse towards him in a public bathroom in Tabriz: “You have the face of a fifty-year-old with the body of a twenty-five-year-old.”

Though fluent in Farsi, Azerbaijani, English, Arabic and Russian, Khalimov struggled with the main Cypriot languages—Greek and Turkish. Thankfully, he only came here for short stays.

Khalimov had been perhaps the most revered on-the-ground Quds officer of the last decade.

However, though he did not feign modesty regarding his operational prowess, he knew he would not be quite as exalted if not for the man he had come to meet.

The other men began to file into Musallah—the prayer hall—eventually leaving just him and one other man.

The Imam peered into the absolutions before crossing the main door and closing it.

Though Khalimov never asked, he reckoned on the shorter, stockier, larger-headed and greyer-haired man being around ten years his senior.

He also smiled his toothy grin with greater frequency and ease than Khalimov.

“As-salaam ‘alykum Moshen,” said the man whose name in Farsi sounded phonetically like Esterategist—The Strategist.

“Wa ‘alaykum as-salaam,” answered Khalimov.

The Strategist switched to a blend of mainly Arabic, spotted with English.

“How are you?”

“They are looking for you.”

“How can they look for someone whose face they don’t recognise?”

Khalimov tilted his jaw. “More and more believe you are a real person and not a myth.”

“Alastiratijiu is not a single person. It is an idea—you and I are a part of it. Our success with Operation Al-Aqsa Flood is just the start.”

Khalimov hated his involvement in the attack on the Jews even being uttered.

He kept his annoyance off his face and said, “If our enemies decide you—we—are real, then they will look for us harder.”

“And we can use that.”

“How?”

The Strategist held up his hand. “Firstly, you need to recruit a team of around a dozen or more trusted men for a mission in Dagestan. Logistics and weapons will be supplied.”

“To do what?”

Alastiratijiu smiled. “After the initial Russian offensive failed to take Kyiv, Putin had a number of small radiological devices sent close to the border in the city of Novorossiysk.”

“Why?” asked Khalimov.

“Purely precautionary measures. If the Ukrainians and their allies somehow made an effective counter thrust, those devices would have ‘found’ themselves in the hands of a ‘rogue’ private army.”

“So the Russians could deny responsibility—apologise for errors in security leading to the bombs’ capture and sue for peace.”

“Yes,” said the older man. “But when the Wagner Group mutinied, Putin decided against that course of action. Besides, the war has now ground into a stalemate. It is felt the precaution is no longer necessary. Those devices will be taken back east of Moscow, but one is to be decommissioned at a station in Northernmost Dagestan.”

Khalimov had stopped asking The Strategist how he knew what he knew a long time ago.

“And you wish for me to capture it?”

“Yes. I will have a more exact interception point once you have your team.”

Khalimov felt his heart beat harder—he hadn’t been able to operate as a soldier for almost a year due to the viper-pit of Tehran’s politics.

A game he hadn’t had to play but received a harsh education in.

“And who do you think I could recruit for this mission?”

The Arab smiled. “Your old team in Syria.”

Khalimov’s face briefly scrunched in confusion.

The Persian’s penetration of ISIS during the Syrian war was legendary in certain circles of the Quds and the higher echelons of the Iranian Government.

With his Azerbaijani ancestral heritage, Khalimov had been able to feign being a bloodthirsty volunteer from the Caucasus region.

The information he had been able to supply to his Quds commander had been invaluable in defeating ISIS.

“What makes you think I will not be crucified when they see me?”

“Because, as far as they are concerned, you were captured during the Battle of Baghuz Fawqani. And you escaped during the Dêrik detention centre breakout. I can support you in whatever cover story since then.”

Khalimov, though not entirely convinced, wanted to be.

The Quds officer said, “Then you should know that I have been assigned to a desk for months and that it does not look to be changing anytime soon.”

“I would not worry about Brigadier General Hasan Qasim. Unless you are to tell me the coming meeting between Iranian intelligence officials and the HAMAS leadership set four days from now is not going ahead?”

Khalimov said nothing for a moment.

“It is.”

“Where?”

Though Khalimov often downloaded generic information to The Strategist, this constituted a rare time of being asked for something specific.

“The Syrian Embassy.”

The Arab smiled. “This will be too good an opportunity for the Israeli Security Services to pass up.”

“Why would that be a good thing for us?”

“Apart from Hasan Qasim, the others will be HAMAS messenger boys—no one important, though the Israelis will be led to believe that The Strategist will be there.”

Khalimov felt a sense of frustration, so he asked the question another way, “Other than getting rid of the political thorn in my side that is Qasim, how does this serve our cause?”

“When the Israelis strike, this will allow Iran to respond free of any real international sanctions.”

“That might help us win a few battles—but not the war?”

“Because, one by one, we will open different war fronts for Israel—and the Zionist dog will chase their tail.”

19

Bruce sat alone at a corner table of the Blue Sky rooftop restaurant.

As the salt air view of Tel Aviv’s grey, white and beige skyline breezed through his eyes, the soldier in him picked out his favoured sniper positions.

As he had gotten older, he could more and more see the finish line of death—even if he lived to old age. And to that end, he had decided to enjoy the ambience of any places he visited now.

He had been to so many places as a younger man—first a conventional and special soldier, then as an agent—but his tunnel vision when ‘operational’ prevented him from ‘experiencing’ the places.

He let the taste of the spicy paprika-sauced fish fillets dance on his tongue before washing it down with the malty Goldstar beer.

And he had long noticed that ‘experiencing’ another culture wasn’t something his protégé Connor Reed suffered with—in the beginning, the Yorkshireman had been willing to experience the local culture, perhaps too much so on occasion.

The Scotsman had almost asked God for Reed’s safe return but realised it to be pointless—if the Almighty did exist, he would hardly decide to change his course of action just because Bruce asked him to.

He lamented Connor’s becoming so effective through the ultimate ‘sink or swim’ approach. Not long after the former Marine had completed his agent training known as ‘the sphere’, Bruce had given him some perilous and vital assignments despite having more proven and technically adept agents.

One primary reason was that Connor had an inbuilt legend in that most of the male family members on his father’s side formed the Ryder criminal organisation. Though Connor had been estranged from them at first, he could still visit some of the more dangerous parts of the world under the guise of being a prospector for illegal imports.

The second reason was that Bruce thought he had identified a superlative natural talent for this work in the young criminal.

And Connor had never yet dissuaded him from that belief. The Englishman had crossed swords with some of the world’s most lethal criminals and mercenaries in some of the most dangerous places and made it back alive with all his limbs intact.

Not that he always came back unscathed—it had been only just over a month ago that he had been treated for exhaustion from a particularly arduous mission in the Yukon.

Bruce had felt a pang of unprofessionalism in asking Connor to undertake this mission so soon after that one.

However, Reed had never exhibited signs of traumatic stress after any of his missions despite the number of people he had killed.

Frustratingly, when Bruce finally convinced Connor to submit to a ‘psych eval’—on the proviso it would be the only one—it hadn’t given any definitive answer to the Yorkshireman’s psychological layout. This was a full day, conducted by three specialists and included tests such as the Rorschach, TAT and MMPI.

Bruce finished his meal and drink. He requested the bill and issued a generous tip.

He made his way out and began to walk along the footpath skirting Tel Aviv beach.

The bicycles zipped by him within the white-striped lanes as the evening clouds dipped their feet into the sea’s horizon.

Bruce thought about how the attacks had—for good or bad—united most of Israel’s people.

Just prior, there had been significant protests by a sector of the country’s left-wing Jews concerning the encroaching West Bank settlements.

Before the attacks, Bruce thought that left-wing Jews in Israel were looked upon in the same vein as conservatives in Glasgow—in a kind of mild disdain.

However, Bruce would bet now that any significant left-wing protest would end in violence.

And the international community and Western social media, mostly condemning Israel’s heavy-handed response, seemingly galvanised the nation with a siege mentality.

He climbed the stone steps off the pier before cutting into the town.

He began the three-kilometre journey to the central bus station. He smiled at the knowledge that he was ‘getting his steps in’—a notion he’d have found hilarious even a few years ago.

As his life had become more sedentary, he had become more mindful of his health.

The term non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or NEAT, had recently come into his awareness, leading him to take more walks, though he refused to wear a pedometer.

He enjoyed the walk as much as possible before entering the city’s south.

Though violent delinquency was said to be generally low in Israel, the south of the city had a monopoly on the few victims of street crime that arose.

In the mid-distance, the central bus station began to appear.

The sun had fully turned in now, and the blue clouds hid the moonlight.

He rounded the corner into the underpass. Looking up, the bridge’s underside reminded him of Darth Vadar’s Star Destroyer.

Israel, particularly Tel Aviv, was among the most surveilled places in the world.

Though the traffic still trundled by, the wet slaps of his steps told him of the lack of other pedestrians.

Four men stepped out in front of him.

All wore differing coloured neckerchiefs used by Palestinian youths to pull up and cover their mouths.

The tallest barked, “Phone.”

“You can have the money from my wallet. Not the phone.”

The youth laughed. “I am not asking you. I am telling you. The phone and your money.”

“Which first?”

As the youth opened his mouth to retort, Bruce punched him in it.

The recipient skidded into a fall.

He ducked a baton swing from the side. Grabbing its owner, Bruce used his leg to sweep one of the heels in an untidy Osotogari, felling his attacker.

He raised his arms and hunched his shoulders to block a wild punch before whipping his head onto the puncher’s nose with crunching force.

A different baton split the back of his head with a wet clank.

Another struck the back of his surgically repaired knee, spinning him to a knight’s kneel.

A boot pitched him onto his side, and he immediately scrunched into a hedgehog.

Amidst receiving several baton strikes and punches, he felt the phone slip out along with his wallet.

The car horns blasted around him, and the blows ceased.

The wet slaps of the trainers running away let him know it was over.

He didn’t look at any of the security cameras, and people rushed to check on his well-being.

That better have been convincing enough, he thought.

It took Connor a moment to get his bearings before jolting to full wakefulness.

She isn’t here, he thought.

His eyes flicked to the floor, and he saw his clothes had disappeared.

Bolting upright, he caught sight of them folded on the dresser.

A black silhouette painting of Audrey Hepburn stared at him on a mustard-yellow wall.

Anna floated in wearing a hemmed nightdress that seemed to Connor a touch Victorian.

Folded clothes rested on one arm, and she gripped the half-heart handle of a rose-patterned mug in the other.

They exchanged a sly grin.

Anna now had the title of the oldest woman he had slept with, and instead of his mild anticipation of having to ‘get through’ the night, he had thoroughly enjoyed their fucking.

What were you expecting? he thought to himself. Loose skin and a dry pussy?

Anna sported a physique and displayed an energy that might have been the envy of a woman half her age.

And she also reminded him of something his Uncle Michael had once told him over ten years ago that “…those hippy, bohemian birds—dirty as fuck.”

She placed the cup on the bedside table and the clothes on a cabinet running against the opposite wall.

He sat up to see it to be a black coffee.

“Only fuc… slept with you once, and already you’re breaking out the romance mugs.”

“Romance mug?”

“The cup with the flowers and hearts on it… not your cum face.”

She eyed him with a wry smile. “You might wish I would fall in love with you, given what we are about to do.”

“I didn’t think we could do much more than we did, but I’m game if you are.”

Her scolding finger focused his eyes.

“Get your head out of the gutter. Playtime is over,” she said before pointing to the folded clothes. “Are you… ahem… squeamish about wearing another man’s underwear?”

“There are not many things in this life I am squeamish about. Besides, I assume they are clean?”

She tilted her chin up and down. “They are clean. Get dressed and come downstairs after your coffee—it might be the last good meal you eat in a while.”

Connor nodded, suitably admonished, and Anna glided away.

He sipped the bitter liquid, grateful for its energising shot and the room’s quiet respite.

He let his mind wander.

It occurred to him that though he was motivated to prevent needless deaths, he didn’t have strong feelings either way on either the conflicts of Russia vs. Ukraine or Israel vs. HAMAS.

In the case of Israel and Palestine, Connor surmised that he, like a lot of Westerners, was now desensitised to seeing Gazan kids in clip through a screen.

All he knew was that certain entities might be keeping the wars going for profit.

Connor looked at the floor before using his feet to search for, find and put on his boxer shorts—he didn’t want to put the clean ones on until after he showered.

He swung out of bed.

After a warm-up set of squats, he rolled his shoulders forward, clasped his hands together, pointed with his index fingers, and began his one-legged pistol squats.

He felt stronger after the first set, so during his second, he explosively jumped, switching legs mid-air to land on the opposite side.

Not many people could do this, he thought. I wonder if—

“What are you doing?” demanded Anna, appearing seemingly from nowhere.

She now wore a light blue unbuttoned shirt over an oatmeal shirt, which matched her trousers.

Connor stopped. “Ahem… I am practising a traditional Cossack dance. Maybe it will help my cover.”

She looked at him quizzically before saying, “There is a shower across the hall. Please do not let your breakfast get cold.”

She left again, and Connor thought it best to curtail his workout.

The shower’s cold needles revived him before he dressed and went downstairs.

He slid into the heavy slabs of polished wood, which constituted a chair and table.

Anna set down a cross between a plate and a bowl, in which nestled three fried eggs topped with sliced sausages and tomatoes.

“Thank you,” he said sincerely.

They ate in silence. Connor forced the tomatoes down despite them being the only common foodstuff he had a dislike for.

Once they had finished and both drank tea, Connor said, “I’ve been thinking about our dilemma.”

“What dilemma is that?”

“The dilemma of what you will do once the armoured truck is spotted down the track to this… estate.”

“You think they will accuse me of stealing it?”

“No, but they might wonder why you haven’t alerted them to an abandoned military vehicle.”

She didn’t speak for a moment. “Yes, they might have something to say about that. What is your suggestion?”

“Maybe you should call it in.”

“So we can both be arrested?”

“They are bound to come here now. If you call them in, it’ll be less suspicious. You said that you trust your credentials. Without being offensive, I don’t think your poetry is widely read amongst Russian soldiers.”

“And what about you?”

“I’ll hide. If you tell them I have run away, then there is no sense in them looking too hard.”

“I see your point,” she said. “Tell me… you say you’re here to prevent more needless war. How again do you hope to achieve that.”

“Well, my boss believes a development is happening in the Caucasus.”

“A region that encompasses six countries.”

Hiding his embarrassment, Connor said, “I believe it’s more centred around the Georgia and Dagestan regions.”

“Oh, two entire countries. It is good to see that British intelligence is as brilliant as the ‘James Bond’ movies depict.”

Connor took the jibe with a smile. “I must be the watered-down version.”

“And you trust your boss?”

Connor frowned. “Yes.”

“Did you trust your father?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because men who lacked a relationship with their fathers tend to collect father figures and trust them blindly.”

Connor held his defensive tongue and thought about what she said momentarily.

“I lived for the most part with my mum. And my dad could be cold. But he was a regular presence in my life—and I’d say a positive one,” he answered. “Besides, technically, my boss is a woman.”

“Technically a woman? He’s trans?”

“No,” exclaimed Connor, realising the ambiguity of the wording. “My former boss is a man. My current boss is a woman. In this instance, we are all working together. And I trust both because, to my knowledge, they have never lied to me.”

“Have they ever been in a position where either has had to?”

“I am not sure.”

“How long have you known your old boss?”

“Several years.”

“Why do you think so highly of him?”

“I thought I was sitting at your breakfast table, not your therapist couch.”

“Considering the risk I am about to take, I think you owe it to me to answer any question I might have.”

He glanced at her and said, “I suppose it was because he gave me a sense of purpose in his life.”

“You could have given yourself a sense of purpose.”

“Maybe, but this best uses my traits and background.”

“What background and traits are those?”

“That I come from a criminal family, which, if I am caught in some of these more nefarious places in the world, it’ll be more assumed that I am prospecting for business than my being an agent. I can also use certain… infrastructures to help me.”

“What about your traits?”

Connor shrugged. “I am resourceful, and the thought of killing people doesn’t bother me enough not to do it.”

He saw a ghost of a smirk appear on her face, and she said, “But it does bother you?”

“Sometimes it doesn’t bother me at all. And sometimes I find it… therapeutic.”

“But sometimes it bothers you.”

“Sometimes I have to remind myself why some people have to die.”

“Let me guess—you always find a reason.”

“Yes. That doesn’t make them invalid.”

“I bet almost all men think that—we know Putin does.”

“I understand your cynicism. And I knew long ago that most wars are simply one nation’s interest versus another’s. Later, I questioned even that. But I do believe in what I am doing. And I don’t believe it is mental dissonance.”

She looked at him for a moment. “I will make the call shortly. You can hide in the basement. After that, we will drive into Crimea.”

In the jolt of gratitude, he asked, “Why are you helping me?”

“No good comes of war.”

Connor pressed his lips a touch but didn’t say anything.

“What?” she asked.

“I think you’re naïve to think nothing good ever comes from war.”

“Educate me.”

“‘There in the holy mill of murder, the meanest of men may seek and find that part of himself, concealed beneath the corrupt, which shines forth brilliant and virtuous, worthy of honour before the gods. Do not despise war, my young friend, nor delude yourself that mercy and compassion are virtues superior to andreia, to manly valour.’”

“What Greek play is that from?”

“It’s from a novel called ‘Gates of Fire’.”

“I was hoping for your own thoughts.”

Connor smiled. “When this is all over, you will find that Ukraine will never be more unified than it is now—it’ll be surer of its identity now. Without conflict, a people become divided by mere trivialities.”

“So you are saying that my people should be glad of this Russian… ‘special operation’?”

“I didn’t say that,” said Connor. “You said nothing good comes of war.”

She nodded, seemingly conceding his point.

“OK. I believe that in war, the bad outweighs the good.”

Connor kept his mouth closed, and Anna got up from the table and crossed the kitchen to open a cupboard drawer.

She returned and handed him a cardboard tube with a purple top. Despite the Russian writing, Connor could see it to be roll-on deodorant and confirmed this by removing the lid.

“I’ve heard the Slavs aren’t very subtle. I do wash my pits when I shower.”

She rolled her eyes. “Lift out the stick.”

Connor did so, seeing that it was only two fingers long—beneath lay a wedge of tightly rolled hryvnia notes.

Anna continued, “Though the Russians have officially made the rouble the currency of Crimea, the people still use hryvnia, despite the ban—the exchange rate was too confusing. There are twenty of the one thousand hryvnia notes in there.”

Connor knew this to equate to around four hundred pounds sterling.

“Thank you,” he said sincerely. “A clever way of hiding it.”

“I do that with lip balm tubes when I am on holiday. Pickpockets do not steal lip balm.”

“Quite a life hack.”

“Indeed. Do you have any?”

“Life hacks?”

“Yes.”

Connor thought for a moment. “I am from Leeds. For around six years, Leeds was home to the UK’s only ‘legal’ on-street red light district in Holbeck. And just up the road from Holbeck was this hotel in Gildersome that hosted swingers’ parties.”

“I am failing to see the life hack?”

“Well, obviously, I used to pick up one of these street walkers, brief her in the car on the way over, give her the cash, and she’d fuck some guy while I fucked his wife. Because they’re streetwalkers, they are cheap as chips. You must work smarter, not harder.”

“Suddenly, I feel like I need to shower.”

“I am jesting. I use nail polish to paint my front door key to differentiate it from the back door key.”

“I won’t ask you what colour you have painted them,” she said with a hint of a smirk.

When Connor smiled back in reply, she said, “If you need anything from the clothes you were wearing, take them now because I will be burning them.”

“You think they’ll be using dogs?”

“Best not take chances.”

Connor nodded his agreement, glad she seemed to display some forethought, before asking, “You don’t happen to have a spare phone, do you?”

Ciara scanned the makeshift briefing room in her apartment with a camera-like electronic bug detector, two of which would have exceeded the value of her car.

Satisfied, she fired up the laptop and went through the various security protocols before and after being patched to Jaime.

The cyber phenomenon said, “He has made contact,” before playing Connor’s check-in audio.

Ciara memorised the key points, including that the Russian captain Lvov was a double agent.

She asked, “And Bruce?”

“A laceration to the back of the head, but there are no suspected broken bones, just bad bruising. The tracker on the phone has not been displaced.”

The air in her lungs floated out.

“About as good as we can hope for,” she said. “Our friend in Ukraine needs to know that his asset is playing both sides.”

“I will get the message to him,” said Jaime. “It is fortunate that neither is dead.”

“I agree,” she said. “Now would not be the time for either of them to lose his touch.”

20

Jamal al-Sheikh looked up at his most trusted muqatil—fighter—Mawlavi.

“It is him, Jamal. I am sure of it,” said Mawlavi urgently.

In the last few months, al-Sheikh had hidden in this aul close to Dagestan’s border with Georgia.

An aul was a fortified village found throughout the Caucasus mountains, mainly built out of stone on the face of high ridges to protect from surprise attacks.

Though desolate ones lay throughout the region, al-Sheikh had chosen to live close to a communal one, knowing they would hide, feed and warn him of any Russian security forces approaching to arrest him.

He had chosen the stone building right on the outskirts so the villagers would have a semblance of protection should the Russians discover his location and drone strike.

“Where is he now?”

“He is sitting on the edge of the square watching a Lezginka dance in the company of one of the elders. I haven’t approached him, Jamal, but word reached me he is looking for you.”

al-Sheikh stood in anger. “Why have you left him with strangers? Do you not remember who Alkhalid is?”

Alkhalid roughly translated to ‘The Immortal’.

“I forget nothing, Jamal,” said the only man under him he would allow to answer him back. “But we all believed him to have been killed or captured during the Battle of Baghuz Fawqani. And now he is here, with half of the FSB looking for us?”

al-Sheikh and Mawlavi had hidden here in the aftermath of their planning and participation in the Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow.

Some of the others had also escaped, but most had been captured by the authorities.

The assumption that the detainees would be tortured was confirmed when a Telegram video leaked of the FSB cutting the ear off one of the Tajiks and forcing him to eat it.

al-Sheikh said, “If you’re saying he’s a Russian spy and they have sent him here specifically, then we are fucked anyway.”

Mawlavi said, “But what if they are using him to get a fix on your position for a strike from the sky?”

“Alkhalid has saved my life more than once. If I am to die, then it is just that he be the one to do it,” said al-Sheikh in a manner that indicated the end of the discussion. “Bring him here.”

Mawlavi nodded his acceptance and disappeared.

The Dagestani felt his being become higher—Moshen Khalimov had been the reason for many ISIS victories in the Syrian civil war.

But unlike many of the battle commanders, Khalimov constantly led from the front.

He seemed to have a high level of soldiering skills and an instinct for combat tactics.

His moniker had derived from an eerie sixth sense for danger, not only for himself but also for others.

al-Sheikh remembered seemingly being attacked by Khalimov, who had seized him by his webbing before dragging him away from the sandbagged position he had been firing from.

al-Sheikh’s bucks and screams of protest ended when an artillery shell destroyed the very spot Khalimov had dragged him away from.

Mawlavi reappeared a few minutes later. “He is outside. No weapons.”

“Send him in.”

Mawlavi nodded. “I will be right outside the door.”

The tall, imposing Khalimov seemed to fill the room as he entered.

“It is good to see you, old friend,” he said.

Although al-Sheikh’s accomplishments had compounded to afford him greater respect amongst his brethren within the Islamic State element in the Caucasus, he couldn’t help but fall back into the younger brother role towards Khalimov.

“I thought it must have been your father then, Moshen.” al-Sheikh smiled. “Still, it has been a while, you old bastard.”

“I will always be your father in Jihad, young one.”

“I know,” said the younger man with a smile. “I must ask why I have been graced with the legend’s presence?”

“To save you from your self-imposed exile, old friend.”

“You here to take me away?”

“Yes and no.”

“I am intrigued.”

“First, I need men.”

al-Sheikh then asked, “How many?”

“No more than fourteen, no less than twelve.”

“Weapons? Funding? Mission schematics?”

“That is all taken care of,” said Khalimov. “I need good fighters fully committed to our Jihad.”

The two former combat comrades stared at one another for a moment before al-Sheikh said, “You came to the right man, my friend.”

Ibrahim Haddad lay on his front clad in a Ghillie suit, as he had several times before—except, this time, he held a Nikon D810 camera instead of an AK-47 or a Carlo submachine gun.

The dark blue of the early night sky began to simmer into black.

He lay over two soccer pitches away from the corner of the dusty road just outside the small town of Zikhron Ya’akov.

The Tamarix trees and short bushes helped make him invisible from the road.

He watched the burgundy Kia Rio trundle up the hill before parking at the scratched-out lay-by at the corner.

He watched Khalil violate his security immediately by getting out of the car to stretch his legs.

Ibrahim watched him glance towards the hill on the opposite side.

He had lied to the youth, telling him his position would be on the opposite side of the road on similar high ground.

At least this way, if the young militant had betrayed him, Ibrahim would have a chance of escaping.

Khalil then got back into the car, presumably as a haven against the descending chill.

He tried to empathise with the twenty-three-year-old Khalil. However, Ibrahim suspected Khalil to be less about ‘the cause’ and more about notoriety.

Indeed, Ibrahim could see that though he believed in Israel as a nation, he despised the sanctimonious Jewish Zionists who claimed Palestinian land as their own.

And he would have found their claims that the Jews had a historic claim to the land laughable had it not meant the displacement of Palestinians.

The truth, everyone knew, was that the government used them as a display of dominance over the Palestinians.

As for the other settlers that moved there—many of them from outside of Israel—Ibrahim was reminded of something his biological father said to him as a boy, “Money is the Jewish God. The people who settle on our land do so because it is cheaper—the only way we can deter them is to make it cost them.”

Despite it being frowned upon in certain Islamic cultures, Ibrahim’s father taught him chess as a very young boy—though he warned him, “It is the ignorance of mullahs that forbid chess, for it is not haram in Allah’s eyes as long as you do not ever gamble on the outcome of a game, Ibrahim. And do not let this game distract you from your prayers.”

He remembered as a teen playing chess with some Jews around the back of the Bracha Goldstein Centenary Memorial Garden and Sports Ground.

Despite having converted to Judaism, he did not tell them of his Palestinian ancestry and instead claimed to be a student from Nof HaGalil.

Ibrahim remembered an argument between a conservative Jew and a more liberal one regarding the settlements.

The liberal had begun to get emotional.

The conservative had pointed out that the Jewish-owned production plants in the West Bank had done more for its economy than the PA ever had and that the workers were primarily Palestinian.

When the liberal had pointed out that the plants paid less than their counterparts in Israel, the conservative had agreed but said, “That is true. But if these idiotic sanctions against products made in the West Bank continue, then Israeli firms will make them in India and China—and then West Bank Palestinians will have to sneak into Israel.”

This sentiment echoed those of his adoptive parents, and Ibrahim could see now this had helped along his already changing attitude towards his biological father’s role in the PA and particularly the character of Arafat.

His attitude towards HAMAS had always been one of abhorrence. He remained convinced that Gaza had the potential to be the Singapore of the Middle East if not for the Islamic death cult.

The darkness had almost surrounded the area now.

When headlights appeared at the bottom of the hill, Ibrahim readied his camera, knowing this to be it.

Ibrahim’s antenna began to sing. Why is a black Toyota Land Cruiser being used? Surely something less conspicuous would have been more appropriate for a clandestine meeting.

He noticed the blacked-out windows even in the low light.

It dawned on him what was about to happen.

He scrambled for the phone and punched in the memorised number.

Khalil got out of his car. He either ignored his call or left his phone in the Rio because he made no attempt to answer.

Mercifully, Khalil moved towards the side of the Cruiser that Ibrahim could see from his vantage point.

However, the young man’s body shielded his view of the windows.

Knowing he would only have a second or two, he switched the Nikon to record.

Khalil bent in tandem with the window coming down before briefly interacting with whomever the driver was.

Ibrahim braced himself.

Khalil’s head whiplashed back like a bloodied ping pong ball.

The window rode up as he fell.

“Fuck,” muttered Ibrahim, sure the camera didn’t catch anything.

Now he knew the Cruiser was going to drive off.

Except, it didn’t.

The back passenger doors opened, and two burly men in dark overalls emerged.

One rifled through Khalil’s pocket and found the Rio’s key as the Land Cruiser pulled away.

After opening the Kia’s boot, the pair gripped the corpse by the wrists and ankles before slinging him in.

All the while, Ibrahim’s camera caught it all.

As the pair got into the Rio and drove away, Ibrahim knew he held perhaps the most incendiary footage in the world.

As Connor sat with his knees to his chest in the dark basement, it had occurred to him that he might have just allowed himself to be trapped, awaiting the Russian authorities to take him.

He knew he had to take a chance with Anna. He’d never make it to Sevastopol without her.

Besides, if she had wanted to betray him, she would not have allowed him to bring the AK 105 and the MP-443 pistol down with him. He had checked each pistol’s firing mechanism before reloading.

However, in such a confined space and with the numbers against him, he doubted if even he could shoot his way out—and even if he did, how long would he last on the run? Especially after killing them.

The thump of boots and the muffled sounds of harsh, masculine Russian coming through the ceiling reminded Connor of the scene in Tarantino’s ‘Inglourious Basterds’ where the Jewish family hid beneath the floorboards.

He could well imagine the determination of the post-war Jews to have a land of their own.

His admiration for Anna had skyrocketed as it wasn’t out of the bounds of reason that she could be recognised—and this thought filled his diaphragm with a guilty mist.

As the aroma of flour, cinnamon and brick dust floated throughout the basement, Connor—given his current predicament—wondered if he wished he’d never taken this mission. Indeed, he knew that Bruce wouldn’t have forced him to.

And even now, Connor knew he’d prefer this to a more ‘normal’ existence.

Though never a heavy drinker, Connor sometimes frequented the family-run Buxton Arms in Leeds and had met men trapped in jobs they disliked.

They would never say they detested their work; they would simply sigh the usual cliches of, ‘A job’s a job’ or ‘The money is good’ or ‘Yeah, it’s alright. It pays the bills.’

Connor felt sorrier for these people than the ones who hated their employment—hate motivated you to act.

In contrast, mere dislike might make one the proverbial frog who allows itself to be boiled to death in a pot of gradually heated water.

It occurred to him that neither he nor any of his male cousins ever had a real nine-to-five other than his cousin, Dan, and possibly Tom.

Until relatively recently, Dan had worked in London’s ruthlessly competitive financial industry.

Though he expressed to Connor how mentally stimulating he had found ‘The City’, he also said he’d often leave earlier than necessary just to find a different route to work to break the monotony of his daily commute.

Working for Bruce and now Ciara, Connor had been battered with fists, clubs and batons, cut by knives, shot at and hit with shrapnel and hospitalised with exhaustion.

Now he waited for the door to burst open with rifle-brandishing soldiers barking East Slavic at him.

His diaphragm tightened as he heard one of the voices amplify.

He could vaguely make out Anna’s before the voices simmered down again.

Shuffling. Quiet. Creaking. A door closed. Silence.

He levelled the AK 105 at the door as the lock unlatched.

Anna appeared, and he lowered it.

The poet announced, “I will drive you as close to the border as I can.”

“I can’t let you do that. They’ll—”

She interrupted him, “If your mission is true, then your responsibility is to it, not to me.”

The truth of her statement quietened him for a moment.

“Thank you.”

“You must decide what our cover is—you are the expert.”

Connor said, “I have credentials stating I am a business prospector for BCJ. It’s a multi-national company specialising—”

“Agricultural and heavy machinery. Yes, I know of the company. They have supplied my uncle his tractor,” she said. “And so, I am to be your interpreter? And if you have credentials and I have a Russian passport, I can drive you through the border.”

“It will be too dangerous for you to drive me through. Best get me close, and I’ll slip over myself.”

She said, “There are drones north of the Crimean border, hunting for enemy behind the lines. If they see you get out, then I will be… visited. It is safer if I get you past the border.”

He wondered what more evidence he needed that angels existed.

Uncomfortable at the thought, he asked, “What was all the shouting about?”

“The soldier in charge was asking me why I didn’t shoot you when I had the chance.”

“What did you say?”

“That I believed you were just a deserter.”

“I remember opening a Christmas present from my uncle when I was four. It was an empty Action Man packaging box.”

“An empty box?”

“Yes.” Connor smiled at the memory. “He said it was ‘Action Man Deserter’.”

“No wonder you became a killer… with that childhood trauma.”

Connor didn’t bother to explain that his Uncle Michael gave him the action figure almost immediately afterwards. The same uncle had been murdered in a gangland shooting a few years ago.

It occurred to him in that instance just how many men he had looked up to had died a violent death.

Bruce McQuillan lay in the hospital bed, already knowing that his hotel room would be just as adequate for convalescence.

The array of differing shades of blues reminded him of a public aquarium.

He had set the upper rest of the bed to sit himself up at a forty-five-degree angle.

His mood had been buoyed by the news Connor was still alive—and still in the game.

Still, he reckoned he felt the effects of the beating more than he would have when younger.

The red abrasions around his back and torso began to seep into purple.

The tight delicacy at the back of his head let him know the location of the stitching without him having to touch it.

Before the attack, Bruce had the phone ‘wiped’ of anything sensitive and placed disinformation on it.

If a highly skilled technician managed to break into it, all they would unearth was that Bruce’s findings hadn’t drifted from the official narrative and that he intended to stay in Israel a while to holiday.

The middle-aged doctor in teal scrubs and John Lennon glasses appeared, holding an open file.

“You’re a fortunate man, Mister McQuillan,” said the doctor with a Southeast English accent. “The radiography report has come back. No fractures to the ribs or the skull, thankfully—you must have been wearing a steel Kippah at the time.”

“I wish I had been,” said Bruce. “What made you come over?”

“I came over for a holiday ten years ago—and never left.” The smiled doctor. “You’ll have to rest here for a while. Irrespective of the lack of a fracture, when one has received a blunt force trauma to the cranium, we like to keep you in for observation.”

“How long?”

“Twenty-four hours.”

“I can’t wait that long.”

“Come on, Mister McQuillan. Unless you’re saving the world, you can’t afford not to give me these twenty-four hours.”

Before Bruce could answer, the sudden quietening of the corridor outside swirled in his ears, ramping his heart rate.

Before the Scotsman had formulated a plan, the door burst open to reveal Naftali Avidan—Mossad’s chief.

He certainly looked healthier than when Bruce had seen him last.

The doctor seemed to recognise who he was because he looked startled.

“Hello, doctor. How are you, Bruce?”

“I’ll live.”

“Doctor, could I have the room?”

“Ahem… certainly… sir.”

The doctor left, and Bruce said, “A phone call to the hospital would have sufficed. Surely you have more important things to be dealing with.”

Avidan smiled as he took a seat.

His face returned to serious. “I am not sure that I do. You see, crimes of that nature are rare in Tel Aviv. You are a foreign national conducting an extremely sensitive investigation, and you’re attacked? Perhaps a coincidence, perhaps not.”

“They took my phone and money.”

“You see, Bruce, it isn’t as if you give off the aura of wealth. And you’re not exactly the least imposing of people. I imagine a gang like that might have preferred an easier, more potentially profitable target.”

“Maybe. Or maybe they were in a rush.”

“Was there anything on your phone that might have compromised the investigation?”

“Nothing some kids could decipher. There are layers of encryption to get through, and I mostly write in code.”

Avidan sighed. “What about professionals?”

“These guys were not professionals,” replied Bruce, despite knowing what Avidan meant.

“No. I mean professional hackers.”

“You think it’s someone inside the Israeli security apparatus?”

“It’s a possibility. Don’t pretend you haven’t suspected the same.”

“OK. That may be a possibility. Though my investigation thus far hasn’t crawed up anything too sinister. And not much that isn’t already discoverable on the internet.”

“Maybe just a random mugging then,” said Avidan, looking at him.

“Maybe.”

“I am unsure why you cut away Shabak’s Protective Security Department’s detail, but you must accept it now if you are to stay.”

“I think I have concluded my investigation, to be honest, Naftali. I need to write my conclusions and send them to Ann Zurer.”

“Oh,” said Avidan. “Then at least allow me to arrange a private flight for you back to the United Kingdom. Given your current state, I do not think any commercial flight would be an enjoyable experience for you.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I will stay in Israel for a week or so. I imagine this might be my last chance for leisure once I return. I’ll stay out of Tel Aviv.”

Bruce watched Avidan’s unconvinced face for a moment before pointing out, “Look, if my attackers were directed by people wishing to hinder my investigative efforts, then surely that threat will be lifted once Ann reports that I have concluded them. If they were opportunists, I’d be unlucky for it to happen twice.”

Avidan nodded, saying, “Well, not to tell tales, but I’ll inform Miles Parker of your refusal of protection. I do not want an ear-bending from the aristocratic Goliath the next time I see him.”

Bruce smiled. “Quite an apt description of the man.”

21

Anna watched Connor lift the last of the milk crates of vodka into the flatbed of the black Mitsubishi L200.

She slung a couple of hessian sacks full of cigarette sleeves into the back seat.

When her eyes met his questioning face, she said, “It might sound like a cliché, but believe me, nothing will make proceedings at Russian military checkpoints go smoother than gifts of vodka and cigarettes.”

“You’re having a bubble, aren’t you?”

“A bubble?”

“As in bubble bath. As in ‘a laugh’. As in, you’re not serious. As in, I, as a Yorkshireman, shouldn’t be using cockney rhyming slang, especially to a Russian, despite how many years she’s spent in England.”

“Get in,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Once both were in, she started the engine and pulled away.

Anna said, “I am not having a ‘bubble’. Corruption is ingrained into the Ukrainian and Russian psyche. It is only when it reaches a critical mass that an explosion occurs.”

“Like the Orange Revolution and the Euromaidan protests?”

“Exactly,” answered Anna before she seethed. “Do you know that if they had taken Kyiv, they were going to reinstate him as a puppet president?”

She spoke of Viktor Yanukovych, the President of Ukraine from 2010 to 2014, until his blatant corruption grew to a level of obscenity that not even the Ukrainian people could stand.

The Englishman said, “You have to admire his ‘go big or go home’ attitude when it came to corruption.”

Anna assumed Connor referred to the former president’s estate—said to have sold for more than seventy-five million dollars—containing a private zoo, underground shooting range, eighteen-hole golf course, tennis courts, bowling alleys and a fleet of vehicles, with some being valued at one million USD.

Though even in this short time, she had gleaned a sense of the Englishman’s humour, her anger answered, “I admire nothing about him. And the Kremlin dared to consider bringing him back.”

“Yeah, I heard rumours.”

They didn’t speak for a while. Anna already knew why she was helping him.

Several years ago, she had an exchange with a young American in a Polish bar.

He had been on his way to join the then-newly organised Georgian Legion, whose recruiter, Kacper Rekawek, was beginning to prove adept at bringing Americans on board.

She had told him, “The Donbas War is attritional. I am afraid you will be in a trench for the duration.”

He had replied, “I am not here for the romance of war. I am here to make a difference. Bystanders will not understand.”

“The pen is mightier than the sword,” she’d replied.

The sting of the American’s laugh and following words had not left her: “That is something that academic pussies say so that they don’t have to take risks or make a real sacrifice.”

Anna broke the quiet with, “I told the soldiers that I need to make the journey into Simferopol but that they can remove their vehicle without my being here—not that they wouldn’t have done so anyway.”

Connor asked, “I read somewhere you once considered Russians and Ukrainians the same people.”

As the L200 trundled past the UAZ-452 that Connor had abandoned, Anna said, “Both the Russians and Ukrainians came out of the Dnieper Baptismal font—what Russia is doing to Ukraine is akin to what Cain did to Abel.”

“You think Russia is jealous of Ukraine?”

“I think it hurt Russia that Kyiv didn’t want to ally with them—instead wanted to ally with the EU.”

“Or maybe the Russian people are jealous of Ukraine’s now more democratic system.”

“I was thinking of something you said earlier—how Ukraine is more united than ever.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know what Putin’s largest mistake was?”

“Failing to capture Kyiv?”

“No,” she said. “It was attacking it in the first place.”

Connor had heard this before but still asked, “Go on.”

“Putin and his predecessors always referred to Kyiv as ‘the mother of all Russian cities’. This comes from the Kyivan Chronicle. You know it?”

“Written around 1200 in the historic Vydubychi Monastery in Kyiv.”

“Yes,” she said, surprise punctuating her voice. “This is one of the documents that convince the Russian intellectual elite that Ukraine is indeed Russia, all but by another name. Especially Kyiv.”

“I was led to believe that Russians can trace back the origins of their religion, written language, literature, arts, law code and their ruling dynasty to Kyiv.”

Connor made sure to pronounce it the Ukrainian way instead of the Russian way of ‘Kiev’.

“That may be true, but for centuries, Ukraine—especially Western Ukraine—has had a different ethnicity and popular culture. Travellers have known for hundreds of years that Western Ukrainians speak differently from Russians. They sing different songs.”

“So what are you saying?”

“What I am saying is that despite that, there were a lot of Russian sympathisers in Kyiv, but that changed once they tried to invade Kyiv.”

“Maybe in Putin’s mind he was attempting to… in his words… ‘De-Nazify’ and liberate Kyiv. Let’s not pretend there isn’t a strong nationalist presence in the capital. I’ve seen with my own eyes demonstrators in Kyiv displaying swastikas.”

“A strong nationalist presence is one thing. The country being Nazis is another. For the love of God, Zelensky is Jewish. Do you know why the Russians were shocked at the resistance they found to the north at the beginning of the campaign?”

“Because the Kremlin had OK’d millions to be spent on the FSB’s espionage network in the northern cities, only to find they had been telling Putin what he wanted to hear. They probably never thought he would actually invade.”

He caught the brief turn of her head in his direction. “Exactly. They rolled in thinking they’d be welcomed as heroes—instead, they were greeted with signs saying, ‘Welcome to Hell.’ And when they realised the truth, they panicked.”

Connor smirked. “I read a report that the Russian armoured units used to advance in tight columns. The Ukrainians would use RPGs and NLAWs to take out the lead and rear vehicles, halting the column. Then they’d pound the rest or simply leave them.”

“Yes, the Kremlin and the Russian military’s arrogance saved Kyiv,” she sneered.

“Well, that and the supply lines are longer in the north,” said Connor. “And as for the arrogance, I think it’s safe to say it is gone now. The last time I checked, the Russians were making marginal gains.”

“The US military aid package will come through.”

“You better hope it does soon.”

They drove in silence for a little while. Connor felt the truck to be a little exposed as he stared out on the flatness of the wheat fields that rolled on and on.

Anna broke his thoughts by asking, “No steady girl in your life?”

“I have a woman.”

“You didn’t think of her while you were fucking me?”

“I can only concentrate on one pair of tits at a time—you know what men are like at multitasking.”

When she side-eyed him, he answered with, “No… not really.”

“Why?”

“I could fabricate a host of reasons, but the truth is, I like women.”

“What would be these fabricated reasons?”

Connor shrugged. “The clichéd ones to start—’What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,’ ‘A man has instincts,’ and all that. Then there’s the fact that the chances of my imminent death are now heightened. And that it’s never a regular thing with the one woman—it’s never an affair.”

“Think she knows?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does she challenge you about it?”

“No.”

“Then she knows, believe me. Count yourself a fortunate man.”

“I do… not just for that reason,” he said before adding, “Thanks for the counselling session. I seem to be having a few of those lately.”

“Are they helping?”

“We’ll soon see,” he said, taking out his phone and sending the first message to a number he had been given around half a decade ago.

David Nazzal rehearsed the various arguments and counter-arguments as he awaited the arrival of two of the most powerful men in Israel.

He knew the prime minister would only take minimal convincing—the political perception of him now revolved around his cabinet being seen to be striking back.

It was Mossad’s chief he’d have to bring around.

Members of Mossad’s sharp edge liked to refer to the Babylonian Talmud quote, “If someone comes to kill you, rise early and kill him first.”

This quote was undoubtedly adhered to during the legendary Meir Dagan’s tenure as director of Mossad. However, even he had concluded that for Israel to attack Iran directly was a ‘stupid’ policy that would only help unite the feuding political entities within that nation.

The tall, distinguished-looking Mossad director entered first.

Nazzal straightened his posture.

He thought the spy master’s hawkish face resembled Ronnie Wood but for the full head of grey and white hair that the director would have reluctantly let grow out from its military crew-cut days.

“David, good to see you.”

Nazzal ensured the pressure of his handshake didn’t exceed the taller man’s.

“You too, Naftali,” answered Nazzal.

“Let’s hope this leads to something substantial.”

Nazzal hid his bristling—since Black Saturday, he sensed the hints of disrespect towards him. “I would not have invited you if I did not think it could.”

“Let’s hope this newfound alertness isn’t descending into paranoia.”

Before he could answer, the door opened again.

A pair of bodyguards he knew well from Shabak’s Protective Security Department made a rapid visual sweep of the room before parting to allow the prime minister and his senior adviser for Foreign Affairs and International Communications to pass.

The men made their collective greetings and sat as the bodyguards left the room.

“David, I’ve been informed that our British guest has been attacked?”

“Yes, sir,” said David contritely. “He went out without his protection officer. Luckily, he’ll live.”

Surprisingly, instead of berating him, the prime minister said, “If he has shirked the shield of the Protective Security Department, then the responsibility is his alone.”

“I should have—”

The prime minister interrupted him with, “What do you have for us?”

Nazzal’s tone climbed, “We have him, sir. Five days from now.”

“Have who?”

“The one the Arabs are calling Alastiratijiu, sir.”

Mossad’s director guffawed. “We don’t even know if this person exists—it is just as likely that this is disinformation. Tell me, David, do you even have a picture of this so-called ‘Strategist’? We don’t, and neither do our allies?”

“With all due respect, Naftali, if it is disinformation, then it is propagated in Iran, Lebanon, Gaza and Russia.”

“It’s called the internet.”

“Do not fucking speak to me in that manner.”

“Gentlemen,” the prime minister interjected before directing a question at the Mossad director. “Are you saying The Strategist doesn’t exist?”

The spymaster answered, “There isn’t nearly enough evidence for confirmation. It could be more than one person.”

“But where is your current belief based with the information you have?”

The director sighed. “I believe he does exist, but the mythology surrounding him is just that—mythology.”

Nazzal said, “A myth can be a powerful agent—especially with the internet.”

Nazzal caught the prime minister’s smirk at his veiled barb.

“You said you’ll have him in five days,” said the Mossad boss. “Care to elaborate?”

“There will be a meeting between senior members of the Quds Force—specifically those from the Sabotage and Special Operations branches and their counterparts in HAMAS’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades—and it will take place in the Iranian consulate in Damascus. The Strategist will be there.”

After a few moments of silence, the prime minister asked the Mossad director, “Does this correlate to what you’re hearing?”

The Mossad director answered while looking at Nazzal. “That correlates, except for the notion that this ‘Strategist’ will be present. I’d be interested to know what evidence Shabak has that he will be there.”

“We have picked up SigInt of the various HAMAS players indicating he’ll be there.”             

The Mossad director rebutted him with, “They know their phone calls are listened to—their misdirection was one of the ways they bamboozled your department on the way to Black Saturday.”

“There were many departments that failed that day.”

Before the director could retort, Nazzal said, “We have had this confirmed by one of our human resources—the same human resource who warned us of the impending attack.”

“So, an opportunity, yes?” said the prime minister rhetorically.

The director said, “My people need to know who this human resource is.”

“We won’t disclose that.”

“What did you say to me, David?” snapped the director. “You want me to sign off on a mission and refuse to give me your source?”

“With all due respect, you don’t need to know our source, Naftali.”

“Let us calm ourselves. Especially as it will be I who bears the brunt of the inevitable, international, liberal fall out of those nations not under attack.”

The director exclaimed, “We can’t just attack another nation’s consulate, especially in a foreign nation. Hezbollah will declare open season on the border. Our resources are already stretched thin.”

The prime minister said, “Meir Dagan himself said we cannot afford a prolonged war. Drawing our enemies out into the open is a good thing.”

Nazzal decided to pour gasoline on the prime minister’s ego. “We’ve intercepted communications of their insistence that Israel would not dare strike them at the consulate.”

“They think that the screams of idiots in Brussels will affect my resolve?”

“There are certain protocols—”

“Those protocols vanished back on October seventh. Besides, Syria has been harbouring the enemies of the Jewish people for decades now. That is how Imad Mughniyeh—another myth, the great ‘Ghost of Beirut’—survived for so long to terrorise the Americans and ourselves. Our enemies must know that nowhere is safe for them to go.”

“I can’t commit men to the ground over there that fast. And I won’t risk a rush job,” said the director defiantly.

Nazzal expected an explosion from the PM. Instead, he stood. “That is what the Air Force is for. I will be meeting with Commander Remez shortly. Even if this so-called Strategist is absent, it is still an opportunity to strike our enemies.”

The prime minister shook Nazzal and the director’s hand and left.

Once he had, the director turned to him stone-faced. “What have you done?”

22

Anna drove down the E97 road at a reasonable speed.

She lamented how one of the distant clouds looked like a nuclear mushroom and darker than the rest.

Connor sat in seemingly serene alertness. They hadn’t spoken for half an hour, and she restrained her urge to break the silence.

She hadn’t truly believed in divine intervention until last night.

And she hadn’t truly believed in the Ukrainian cause until around two months ago.

Zelensky might have been a creator of comedy shows, but he had now proved himself a cunning politician and a popular leader.

She admired the fact that despite growing up as a native Russian speaker, Zelensky learnt fluent Ukrainian for interviews, that he was adept at the use of social media and his refusal to leave Kyiv, uttering his now-famous quote, ‘The fight is here [in Kyiv]; I need ammunition, not a ride.’

However, no leader—however charismatic—could galvanise the resolve of the people if the will was utterly absent.

Anna could see now that the Ukrainian people yearned for democratic self-governance—or at least the illusion of such.

Then she visited the war-struck cities in the north and northeast, such as Lyptsi, Starytsia and Vovchansk, and caught glimpses of the horror of war.

If this Connor had shown up two months before, she might have simply shot him—at least in the legs, maybe—or, more likely, had him arrested.

However, when he had told her he was here to shorten the timeframe of the war, Anna would have thought it at least melodramatic and, at worst, delusional if it hadn’t been for the way he said it.

That said, seeing him in a fistfight with her geese hadn’t entirely inspired her with confidence.

Her sleeping with him had been unexpected, too—she caught something in his eye that told her he might be receptive to the idea—her forthrightness would have surprised her had it not been so long.

His reaction pleased her, too—a happy surprise upon her invitation, and instead of treating her like a doll, she had received a raucous pounding she hadn’t had for a long time.

And the lack of awkwardness the next morning had been refreshing.

As the dark cloud got nearer, she said, “We are not too far from the Crimean border.”

“I didn’t see a military checkpoint posted there when I did my research,” he replied.

“No, but there will be one around three kilometres after that at the intersection near a town named Armiansk.”

“And, as you said, the Russian drones will pick us up on our approach.”

She side-eyed him. “Let’s hope your credentials are convincing.”

“Let’s hope, eh?” he answered without a trace of nerves in his voice.

“You seem calm considering the stakes.”

“Turning back is out of the question. And panicking isn’t going to help the situation. We have our cards. We can only play them as well as we can.”

She looked out the window momentarily before saying, “When a man is used to winning, he can’t imagine losing.”

“You think I haven’t lost?”

“I would say—”

“I have lost friends and relatives. I have failed to save at least one good man. I have lost plenty.”

“OK,” she said. “But do you have a sense of invincibility?”

She thought she could hear him smile.

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.”

“That a samurai quote?”

“Nah. Tupac Shakur.”

“Really?”

She saw him turn to look at her. “I think so, but only after Norman Cousins said it first. I thought a cultured old bird like you would know.”

She burned at his cheek. “You are correct. I should have.”

He gestured to the miniature biplane in the sky and said, “That’s an Orlan-10 drone. We must be close.”

The Russian signpost denoting the border appeared no sooner than he said it.

She said, “I have always found that strange—that the two countries are at war, but all that shows the border is that little sign.”

“They have to post their respective forces where the fight is.”

Soon, they began to creep into the beginnings of a traffic jam.

She could see Connor straighten in his seat a little.

The short queue slowed to a crawl before stopping them.

The checkpoint consisted of a waist-high stone bollard with a traffic stop sign leaning against it.

Four soldiers in balaclavas revolved around the vehicles; three carried what she knew to be some type of AK-47 type weapon, with another holding a shotgun.

Anna asked him, “Why do the Russian soldiers wear blue camouflage? I thought the purpose of wearing it was so they can’t be seen?”

“It’s called ‘Digital Flora’. You’re right. It isn’t designed for them to blend in—it’s designed for them to stand out from the crowd during a riot. These guys aren’t military. They are affiliated with the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Whether they are police proper or paramilitaries, I don’t know.”

“Which is better for us?”

“Paramilitaries might be more… exuberant. The police more thorough. That said, the checkpoint doesn’t exactly look state of the art.”

As they crept closer, she knew asking questions to be a way of hiding her nerves, but she felt curious regarding his lack of them.

“What are the weapons they are carrying?”

“Three of them have AKMs—the AK-74 has replaced them in the Russian military, but the police and paramilitaries are issued the AKMs. The other one has a Molot Bekas-M shotgun. A bit of a sporting rifle—would still sting being shot by it.”

“Why do they insist on wearing those balaclavas? To intimidate?”

“Maybe,” replied Connor. “But even in summer, it is cold just standing. And it keeps them from inhaling the dust riding on that shit wagon.”

A Chery Tiggo passed through the checkpoint after a barking cross-examination.

Anna wiped the moisture away from her hairline and crept forward.

“I will do the talking.”

Connor laughed. “No, I think I should be the one to talk, given my Yorkshire-accented pigeon Russian.”

As they became the penultimate vehicle, he said, “Remember, we are simply prospectors for business. You must believe that to your core—understand?”

She nodded, and he caught the shotgun flicking glances at her.

The front vehicle moved off, and she slid the Mitsubishi L200 forward.

The shotgun gestured for her to wind down her window.

He told her in Russian, “Turn the engine off.”

When she complied, he said, “Give me the keys for the back.”

“It is not locked,” she replied, also in Russian.

“Is there anything of interest before we open it?”

“Maybe.” She smiled. “But nothing sinister.”

She could feel and hear the aluminium tonneau cover lifted from the rear.

The shotgun’s eyes looked over to the back. She could almost see his smile through the mask as he looked back.

“You a cigarette and vodka saleswoman?”

She smiled back. “I can’t be an excellent saleswoman if I give them away to the lads. Leave enough for the other checkpoints along the way to Crimea, or I will be in big trouble.”

His eyes looked at his brows for a few moments. “A bottle and a sleeve each?”

“You can double that, surely. We do not want to leave too much for the last checkpoint.”

He laughed, asked for their documents, and she handed them over.

As the soldier scrutinised them, he asked, “Does he speak?”

“He is English. Very, very boring. Trust me, you do not want him to speak—I am tempted to ask you to shoot him so I do not have to shoot myself. Why is it that boring people tend to talk the most?”

The shotgun looked at him.

“He is not talking much now.”

“I told him that the big, bad Russian soldiers might shoot him for being English. Too much James Bond has corrupted the British mind. It is funny, really.”

The shotgun guffawed and repeated her sentiments to his colleague, who stood just off to the side.

“What is an Englishman doing down here?” the paramilitary asked, still studying the credentials.

“He is a prospector for BCJ. They supply—”

“I know who they are.”

“I am taking him down to the Peninsula to interpret for him. You know how our esteemed leader wants to show the world how it will be better under Russia than Ukraine.”

“You do not think that is the case, Mrs Kostenko?”

She felt her stomach tighten—maybe she had overplayed the familiarity card.

“Time will tell, young man,” she said. “When you get to my age, you learn to manage your expectations.”

The shotgun nodded, handing back her credentials.

“We appreciate the gifts, Mrs Kostenko.”

“The appreciation is mine, boys.”

The shotgun waved her through, and Anna released the breath her stomach had apparently been holding.

Bruce shifted in the hospital bed, hating how much his ribs throbbed. He abhorred more that he had to wait until tomorrow to leave.

He remembered in his soldiering days how the knowledge of an impending attack or an upcoming mission, no matter how massive, would have a calming effect on him as it meant he could prepare by charging magazines, building defences and drilling.

The waiting was the true killer.

He remembered when he was a young special forces trooper, watching one of the ‘old ‘n bold’ deal with the waiting by simply whipping out a dog-eared Robert Ludlum paperback.

He now did the same, reading a copy of the highly entertaining ‘Orphan X’ by Gregg Hurwitz and wishing he had someone as terrifyingly switched on as Evan Smoak.

He had yet to meet anyone who could quite live up to the all-encompassing one-man army types depicted in action-thriller books and films.

And he had worked with the highest level of operative once he had made sergeant and been invited from the Revolutionary Warfare Wing (RWW) of 22 SAS into what was known back then as ‘The Increment’—now given the official name of E-squadron.

There, he had met operatives who exhibited a level of professionalism and capability that he wasn’t sure he could reach.

Bruce straightened in surprise when Ibrahim appeared dressed in the white jacket of an Israeli doctor with a wheelchair.

Though unnecessary from a mobility point of view, Bruce did not hesitate to slide into it.

Wordlessly, Ibrahim took out a still-sealed box containing a smartphone. Bruce, admiring Ibrahim’s professional forward-thinking, nodded to the bedside cabinet, and the agent placed the box inside.

Ibrahim pushed him into the corridor, past the chattering nurses, down to the elevator doors.

They opened to belch out a trio of medical staff, leaving the Caesarea agent and Bruce alone in the steel box.

Ibrahim began to speak hushed and rapidly.

“They assassinated Khalil Ali at the meeting spot—as soon as he handed over the phone.”

“Did you ID the shooter?”

“I caught it all on film. The footage shows a glimpse of a partial facial shot—I ran it through a high-level image enhancer.”

“And?”

“Avi Teper, a Shin Bet team leader within the Israel and Foreigners Department—although we still call it the Jewish Department. However, he’s currently under suspension following several complaints regarding his interrogation techniques—blind eyes are turned when putting HAMAS suspects into the shabach position for hours, not so much left-wing Jews.”

The elevator doors opened, but in the absence of anyone trying to get in, Ibrahim pressed the upper floor button again.

When the doors closed, Ibrahim continued, “That was well over a year ago. Now, there has been a long and secretly held practice that if an agent is suspended from an intelligence agency pending an investigation—and it looks likely his or her employment will have to be terminated as a result—then they might miraculously find themselves within the employ of another agency. Perhaps they are even moved pending the investigation.”

“Which would narrow it down to Mossad or Aman?”

“Correct,” said Ibrahim. “I can’t follow him alone.”

The doors opened again, and a civilian couple got in. The man looked at them quizzically as he pressed for the ground floor, and Ibrahim answered, “That’s where we are going.”

Despite the presence of the couple, Bruce switched to talking in code, “Can your boss spare some orderlies?”

“He’s looking into it. But it’s difficult to pull personnel from different units of the same hospital.”

They didn’t speak until the elevator opened again, and Ibrahim began to wheel him down the corridor.

Bruce said, “Meaning that if Avi is working for someone within Mossad, Raz can’t be sure that the surveillance of Avi wouldn’t get back to that person.”

“Yes, maybe, but it might be worth the risk—as far as I can tell, the Kidon has always been loyal to Raz above all.”

“This isn’t his first rodeo,” said Bruce as Ibrahim pushed him through the automatic doors leading outside.

Ibrahim said, “One of the men got out to put Khalil Ali in the trunk of the vehicle he came in. The camera caught him clean. I can’t be sure, but I think I recognise him from my time in the IDF. Not sure where he went after that.”

“Where is the footage now?”

“I made four copies. I have the original. Raz has one. And one is buried at the base of the palm tree at Sheva Tahanot. Another is just off the Naomi Shemer trail at a long and lat of 32.04892 and 34.82217.”

“You said four copies.”

Ibrahim produced a metallic case the size of a book of stamps with a combination lock.

“The combination is the date we met.”

“Romantic.”

“What?”

“It’s a joke, Ibrahim.”

Ibrahim, as if not acknowledging him, said, “If this footage is leaked, it’ll be catastrophic for Israel—their informants will stop working for them, the Iranian propaganda will catch the wrath of millions of Muslims—not just Shiite—and the international community will condemn them along with the global press.”

The assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai had only been half an embarrassment to Israel; the Mossad assassins were photographed and their aliases put on Interpol’s most wanted list, but it again highlighted Mossad’s willingness to assassinate its enemies in foreign countries.

Bruce had to agree with the Mossad agent’s assessment.

“A single bullet started World War I.”

The Scotsman, attempting some perspective, said, “That was an Archduke, Ibrahim, not some scallywag from a junior, off-shoot terror organisation.”

“You see my point, though?”

“Of course,” said Bruce. “Which is why I understand that you haven’t told Raz just how many copies you made.”

He felt the wheelchair slow, and Ibrahim said, voice tinged with hesitation, “Raz is the most trustworthy person I know, but I don’t fully trust anyone—years in this business teach you that. As well you know.”

Connor’s eyes flicked towards the rear-view mirror to check the actions and demeanour of the checkpoint soldiers.

When he couldn’t see anything untoward, he said, “So I am very boring, eh?”

She smiled. “I did not think you would understand.”

“I only picked out a few words.”

“Very good.”

His eyes caught her hand trembling.

“You did well, Anna.”

“Let us hope I do just as well for all the others we will likely go through.”

“I know, but that was likely the most stringent one.”

They drove in silence for a few moments.

As they headed out of Armiansk, Connor sensed that despite the roads and high-rises, the area and people remained defiantly rural.

His eyes flicked to the rear-view, and his heart began to pulse, his lungs to suck for oxygen.

“Anna, we are about to be arrested. I have the MP-443 pistol beneath the seat. You’re going to tell them I threatened your life.”

He watched her face turn into a mask of colourless fear as he took out his phone, smashing it against his knee.

“Why are they pulling us over?”

Connor placed the broken phone parts in a Styrofoam cup and slung it out the window.

He answered, “I guess they received a phone call after we left. Now we are about to be taken—you can do nothing for me now. You tell them, unbeknownst to you, I was hiding after they came earlier today and popped out to threaten you at gunpoint, OK?”

Pulling the Toyota over, she said, “I will not be ashamed.”

He hissed, “Listen, you fucking div, you’re not going to be helping anyone from a Russian prison cell. Just play the game.”

Four balaclavas rushed the Toyota. A gremlin began to ice his insides with dread; these men wore a four-colour digital camouflage, brandished the relatively new and compact AM-17 assault rifle, and moved with professional cohesion.

Connor guessed FSB.

He held up his hands with his palms facing out.

His door ripped open, and thrusting hands tore him onto the ground.

The Russian commands chopped through him—though he understood them, he thought it best to disguise any command of the language he had.

He could make out Anna imploring them that he didn’t speak Russian, and then he felt the first boot to the ribcage.

In English, Anna called out to him, “He said on your knees.”

The AM-17 barrel confirmed her with, “Yes. On knees.”

Connor dragged himself into the said position.

As he did so, he caught sight of the patch with the mirrored eagles, denoting his suspicions they were FSB to be correct.

Jason Statham’s voice echoed in his head—Now, we are fucked.

He countered it with his own—You’re still in the game.

Another FSB officer said, “Hands on head. Stand.”

Connor slowly complied.

The pair expertly frisked him—they never got in one another’s way.

They then manipulated him into the stress position, overleaning, straight-armed, his fingertips on the bonnet.

One covered him, another her, as the remaining pair searched the vehicle.

They found the MP-443 within seconds but continued the search.

Another few minutes saw the search complete, and an armoured vehicle Connor knew to be a Kharunzhiy arrived.

The front of the Kharunzhiy reminded him of Sid the Ground Sloth from ‘Ice Age’ as the headlights fell well below the grille. That said, it looked an imposing unit of black angles and reflective glass.

He thought it a good sign Anna was not being bundled in after him—he hoped her kindness towards him wouldn’t be punished.

23

Brigadier General Hasan Qasim could barely conceal his fury.

He stood at the head of a long, polished oak table that shone with the row of overhead lights.

The room smelled lightly of black pepper and cinnamon.

To his left sat a financier from HAMAS and a master of arms from the Islamic Jihad.

To his right sat the chief instructor of the West Beqaa Valley training camp.

Past them sat six Quds officers that Qasim had handpicked.

Following the assassination of Qasem Soleimani via a drone strike, the Quds commander had been replaced by General Esmail Ghaani.

The Ayatollah had appointed Hasan as a check against any potential omnipotence by a single man in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

He sat here now, within the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, to implement his plan—a plan that Soleimani had not agreed with, but mercifully, the Ayatollah had.

However, the members—the important men—of HAMAS, the Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah he had explicitly requested had not arrived—instead, they had sent proxies.

And the one they called The Strategist had not arrived either.

Qasim demanded in English, “What is the meaning of this? Why haven’t the men I sent for arrived?”

When no one answered, he stared at the Hezbollah instructor, who said, “He told me it wasn’t prudent for such senior members of each of our organisations to be in the same place at the same time.”

Qasim fumed as the two to his left echoed the sentiment.

He calmed himself—This is happening whether they are here or not.

He billowed his chest and announced, “This is… how do the British say… avoiding keeping your eggs in one basket. This is exactly how I feel about the one they call The Strategist. One man should not have to do all the work.”

Quiet swirled, and the Hezbollah instructor said, “Brigadier General, must everything you hear in this room be reported back?”

Qasim regarded him and said, “I have discretion.”

The instructor appeared to take a breath before saying, “I am in complete agreement with you. I remember the complete disarray when the rats killed Mughniyeh.”

The pair across from him echoed his sentiments before the HAMAS financier cautioned, “My opinion is not necessarily the opinion of my hierarchy.”

“I am your hierarchy on this matter—my authority is given to me by the Ayatollah himself. And The Strategist will no longer be your liaison. Our officers behind you will assist you now. I have divided the roles between them. They are—”

The six screaming missiles cut off his words in a firestorm of flesh-stripping, bone-shattering, brick-busting detonations.

Connor began to assess the situation as the Kharunzhiy pulled away with him in it.

The FSB officer they had put in with him kept his eyes and the barrel of the lapped AM-17 firmly in Connor’s direction.

The floor-bolted chain came up before dividing itself in two to secure his wrists.

He reckoned they would probably take him to Dzhankoi in the northern part of Crimea—Connor knew the FSB had set up an initial holding centre there.

Connor began to breathe rhythmically to counteract the havoc his rising dread would likely play on his motor skills and nervous system.

He knew fear could run an imagination wild, bringing the worst possible scenarios to the forefront before magnifying them.

However, he knew how remote his chances were now—with no communication and no weapon, secured by armed FSB who knew what they were doing in a hostile, relatively unfamiliar country. Even John Wick would find escape at least mildly challenging.

Still, panic never helped.

Surprise sparked through him when the FSB officer spoke to him in clear and concise English.

“Do you have any questions for me?”

Connor slowly nodded. “If you stay awake all night, would you still have morning breath?”

The officer frowned before smirking. “You are a funny man, Mister…?”

When Connor didn’t answer his question, the officer said, “You should tell me now. They will get your name eventually.”

“I am sure they will.”

Connor knew this officer was for more than guard duty. And if the black operations agent were to guess, he would be either highly-ranked or perhaps a trained negotiator.

“I will tell you what will happen. Soon, we will arrive at a local station. You will be asked questions. If you do not answer, you will be transferred to Sevastopol. If you do not answer, you will be transferred to Moscow. And if you do not answer there, then maybe luck smiles upon you, and you will be transferred to Siberia.”

“How much must I pay for this holiday trip across Russia?”

“You will pay greatly at your final destination.”

Connor knew he should play the Grey Man or the disorientated fool. Either was more professional than the defiant antagonist he played now. But he didn’t want to give the FSB officer the satisfaction of seeing him scared.

Connor didn’t have illusions regarding their ability to ‘break him’; though aware that he possessed an uncommonly high level of mental fortitude, he also knew that if professionals were given enough time and resources, they could break almost anyone.

He had read of the Ukrainian claims of torture chambers they had allegedly found in Balakliya, Izyum, Vasylivka and Kherson.

Connor didn’t know how much was true and how much was propaganda, but he guessed that Russian interrogation techniques would be decidedly unpleasant.

The Englishman guessed the FSB officer mistook his not answering as a fear response because he continued, “Sometimes… err… detainees are released… released into the forests of the Arkhangelsk Region. There are many thousands of bears there.”

Connor allowed an expression of being scared to appear.

“What type of bears?”

“Big brown bears.”

“Phew,” sighed Connor. “So, none of those unpredictable female white bears that are at times depressed, low on energy and then, without warning or reason, extremely aggressive and gleeful in tearing you to pieces?”

The officer frowned and asked with a tone of caution, “What bears are they?”

“You know… the Bi-polar bears!”

“Bi-polar bears?”

“The joke loses its impact if I have to explain it to you.”

The FSB officer smiled whilst nodding his head. He leant over to Connor and punched him hard in the face.

The Englishman managed to turn his face so that the knuckles impacted his cheek and not his nose.

Connor internally admonished himself; Stop it with the funnies, they are just getting you punched.

“This is the impact of me explaining to you.”

“Good point. Well presented,” said the former Royal Marine commando.

“Maybe you have come as a clown to entertain Russian soldiers. Thank you.”

Connor felt he had made his point and decided it wouldn’t be wise to push a man willing to hit him whilst his hands were shackled.

The detonation caused a sensory overload of his eardrums, the restraints vice-biting his wrists and ankles whilst being rotated through space.

On the armoured vehicle landing on its side, Connor found himself suspended by his arresting bracelets.

The officer lay unconscious; Connor assumed the Russian hit his head in the explosion still ringing in the Englishman’s ears.

Small arms fire reverberated through the armoured vehicle and his diaphragm.

Time seemed to slow as the firing stopped. A few moments passed before the bolts ominously unlatched.

The doors came open to reveal a squad of wooden stock AK-47s. Balaclavas with differing styles of black jackets held the assault rifles.

The lead AK fired a hammer pair, punching into the skull of his interrogator.

Connor closed his eyes and thought of Grace and Jackson.

However, the sound of an angle grinder being revved opened them.

Three of them had entered the back.

He protectively shut his eyes once again as the screaming circular blade sprayed hot sparks over him.

He fell into the mens’ arms on the unlatching of his seatbelt.

Fuck’s sake, he thought. Suppose it’s nice to be wanted.

Brigadier General Esmail Qaani stood as the venomous tirade of Ali Khamenei filled the Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran.

In his life, Khamenei had endured Iran’s lethal political landscape, been arrested several times, exiled for three years and survived an assassination attempt in 1981, which had left his right arm paralysed—he wasn’t a man prone to panic.

However, Qaani reckoned this to be the first time he had seen the eighty-five-year-old raise his voice in this private setting, let alone see him stand and pace.

The Ayatollah’s eyes also looked as black as his turban.

Despite his being almost two decades younger, Qaani thought the supreme leader possessed almost as much energy when angry.

Turban aside, the two bespectacled men did not look dissimilar, Qaani’s beard being shorter and greyer and the Ayatollah being a touch taller.

“This is an outright act of war, Esmail. Our people demand a response.”

“Of course.”

The two men spoke mainly in Farsi and Dari Persian for but a few words.

“Then how would you suggest we proceed?”

“Supreme Leader, the reason why the Jews have risked this is because our methods are working. Remember when you said, ‘We do not throw our enemy a life jacket when he is struggling to swim’?’’

Though the Ayatollah could have said this, Qaani had never heard him say it. However, the Quds Force commander knew the best way to get a powerful person to do anything was to get them to believe it was their idea.

“I want to drown them, Brigadier General.”

“They have done this because they are desperate. They believed the Palestinians and Lebanese had sent more senior members.”

“They did not?” asked the supreme leader.

“No. None of the members Brigadier General Hasan Qasim requested were present—praise Allah.”

“And why not? They were ordered to.”

“‘Their advisers told them to send representatives instead for security reasons,” said Qaani.

“We are their advisers,” the supreme leader said with disdain.

“We are,” answered the brigadier general, knowing that the Ayatollah would catch the ambiguous reference.

Khamenei stared at him before saying, “We cannot do nothing. So, I want your proposal to strike back.”

“I have already contacted our brothers in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen to launch a missile attack simultaneously to overwhelm their defence systems. We are awaiting your approval, Supreme Leader.”

“You have my decree, Qaani, but I know their ‘Iron Dome’ and ‘David’s Sling’ will intercept most of the missiles. We need to make the Jews pay in blood.”

“We will, Supreme Leader. This is to quell the cries for vengeance, allowing us the room to continue our plan. And our plan is still on track.”

24

Connor reckoned they had driven for over two hours now.

They had taught him in his agent training that if taken, make best efforts to keep yourself orientated in both direction and distance.

His best guess was around a hundred kilometres in a south-west direction.

He had expected to be hooded. Instead, they had put a pair of taped goggles on him.

Whoever they were, they hadn’t secured his wrists either—just bundled him in some van and wrapped a seatbelt around him.

He might have snatched sleep if he had not been thrown around at intervals. This route proved decidedly bumpier than that the FSB had taken.

His mind began to assess who had taken him and for what purpose.

The guys who had taken him had handled him kinetically, but he hadn’t got a sense of malice.

He sensed the van beginning to slow. He didn’t feel the sense of anticipation he had expected.

Connor had a theory that the body only had so much ‘fight or flight’ response between sleep cycles. He remembered once boxing in a one-day tournament as a teen, and the nerves almost receded after the first match.

The vehicle ground to a halt.

The sound of men.

The back doors opened.

Fingertips of a single hand prodded him out as another hand pressured his head down to prevent him from hitting it.

He could sense the forest around them.

As the goggles came away from his face, he fought not to squint.

Relief streamed through his diaphragm when he saw her—the bogeywoman of the Russian fighting man.

“So, Connor, you are alive,” said Roza Afandi.

Bruce sat within the hum at an American bar in Petah Tikva. On the television flickered images of the previous night’s rocket attack by Iran.

Despite the doctor’s reluctance, he had discharged himself from the hospital around twelve hours before. Travelling back to the hotel, he had packed and took public transport to this city around half an hour east of Tel Aviv.

Now he sipped the tall glass of cool, crisp lager. Since entering his fifties and under Adriana’s prodding, Bruce usually chose his meals and their portions more healthily than the Sloppy Joe’s burger he had just consumed with a dessert of apple pie.

The Scotsman told himself he would burn it off playing tourist and sightseeing later around this city.

He had conducted a subtle ‘cleaning run’—a series of procedures designed to lose a shadow—but yet again couldn’t spot any definite ones.

The Israeli Security Services had the best trained human surveillance professionals in the world, and he would have guessed they’d be put on him.

Then again, perhaps the rocket attacks had stretched Israeli resources.

When he had finished, he’d asked to sit up at the bar, and the barman had agreed.

The earliness of the day meant the bar hadn’t cranked up the music yet.

The former black operation chief had chosen this spot at the bar for its absence of people, cameras or mirrors behind him.

He fired up his laptop before entering a series of encryptions.

Ciara’s pixelated face began to resolve into high-definition.

They went through their anti-duress challenges, and Ciara said, “He states that the SZRU asset has been compromised. Our friend over there needs to be informed.”

Bruce disliked assigning the agents code names or even numbers, preferring vague references in the improbable event that their call’s security had been compromised.

In this instance, ‘he’ was Connor and ‘our friend over there’ was Yuri Kozlov.

“I’ll inform him,” Bruce said.

Ciara then gave Bruce the details of Connor’s last report.

When finished, Bruce asked, “Any news on his status?”

“Nothing definitive,” said Ciara. “But our friend here managed to pick up traffic that a man was arrested at the border. Then, a report that an FSB armoured vehicle had been ambushed en route to Dzhankoi. Nothing confirmed whether it was the same vehicle the detainee was in.”

Bruce said, “If he reports in and is still able to play, I want you to ask him to find his way to the Georgian port of Poti. We might be more able to provide him help at that location.”

Ciara nodded. “OK.”

Bruce asked, “Do you have anything regarding the recording I sent you?”

“Yes, I’ll send you a detailed file, but they were former Mossad agents.”

The information jarred Bruce, who said, “Former Mossad killed a Shin Bet asset?”

“Seems so.”

“And the tracker on the phone?”

“Stopped in Netanya. I suspect a computer shop is some safe house, judging by the number of surveillance devices surrounding it at different distances and points. The phone has been switched on and off twice now.”

“OK,” said Bruce. “What about last night’s rocket attack?”

“The Iranians codenamed it ‘Operation True Promise’. The Israelis had more than a general anticipation of the attack—a coalition of the American, British, French and Jordanian Air Forces was formed to help shoot down some of the missiles. Still, it seems that Israel’s own defences intercepted most.”

“Any deaths?”

“None reported so far.”

“Good. Anything for me?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll see you later.”

Bruce typed in a command, then cleaned the laptop of any trace of the interaction and packed it away.

The barman asked, “You here on business or pleasure?”

Bruce guessed him to be from New Jersey.

“It was business. Now it’s pleasure,” half-lied Bruce.

“Some time you’ve come with all this going on.”

“Well, we Scotsmen are supposed to be ‘tight’, so I figured it would be cheaper to come now.” Bruce smiled. “Besides, I would suppose there is always something going on.”

The barman grinned. “You’re right there. Though I haven’t heard the media speak of World War III being started for a while. Been enough to frighten my barman of three years into not coming in.”

“He thinks it’s safer where he lives than here?”

“He might have taken a flight out of here.”

The comment reminded Bruce of an article he read on the potential mass exodus of Israelis if Iran obtained a nuclear arsenal.

Bruce asked, “Your place, eh?”

“Yep, another in Tel Aviv. People will travel thousands of miles just to feel back at home.”

The Glaswegian smiled in agreement as a woman who looked a young sixty with black hair scraped back into a ponytail sat on a stool across the same corner of the bar.

When she ordered the same beer as him, she sounded Israeli to his ear.

The owner served her before turning back to Bruce, “Do you think the end is nigh?”

Bruce said, “I don’t think it’s got to that point just yet. The Iranian Government perhaps felt they had to retaliate for the Damascus air strike.”

“We wouldn’t have had to do that if they stopped supplying the terrorists in Gaza. I cannot understand why we haven’t simply carpet-bombed that place to the ground. Probably because, like rats, they would hide in their tunnels.”

Bruce hadn’t wanted to be drawn on the subject but said, “I would imagine God would take a dim view of the carpet bombing of an entire people.”

The owner guffawed. “No different to Hiroshima and Nagasaki… or Dresden. It is our land—God promised it to us.”

The woman laughed, turning both men’s attention to her.

“What’s so funny?” asked the owner.

“God didn’t promise you the land,” she said before gesturing to Bruce. “Great Britain did.”

“I think you’ll find we Jews are The Chosen People.”

The woman sighed. “‘The Chosen People’—perhaps the most racist slogan on Earth.”

“You sound like the type of leftist that has weakened us. ‘Allow them in,’ ‘Give them work,’ ‘We can all get along,’ and they repaid us in that massacre.”

“We gave them work because we can get away with paying them less than any Israeli would accept.”

“You know full well that Israel has done more to help the Palestinians than any other nation—you can’t tell me otherwise. The Jordanians learnt that back in the seventies—so yes, carpet bomb them and have done with it because they would us if they could.”

“The children, too?” she challenged.

“The Palestinian children are being brainwashed in their so-called schools. Have you seen the cartoons they have been shown and how they depict us? They are taught ‘Mein Kampf’ and run about with toy guns. Baby rats don’t grow up to be beautiful rabbits, so yes, the children, too.”

Bruce interrupted whatever potential riposte with, “On that note, I will leave you two to it.”

The woman stood with him, saying, “I’ll join you. ‘We should carpet bomb the children.’ Such a vile thing to say.”

Bruce’s antenna went up as she followed him out. Could she be a plant? She did sit close despite the spaces at the bar.

However, she then turned to go in the opposite direction.

He called out to her, “Excuse me?”

“Yes?” she answered.

“What is your name?”

After a brief look, she answered, “Adina.”

“Adina, you owe me for the beer I didn’t get to finish.”

She frowned before flashing him her perfect teeth. “Oh, I owe you, do I, Mister…?”

“You can call me Bruce.” He shrugged. “You could at least point me towards a decent bar. I am new here.”

She looked at him and said, “Since you’re new, I’ll just take you. We wouldn’t want to see you get lost.”

Connor stood facing Roza Afandi in the clearing of the forest.

Behind her stood seven men dressed in dark clothes holding AK-variant assault rifles in the low port. They seemed older than Connor would have suspected, with one or two looking deep into their fifties.

The ‘name’ Roza Afandi still weighed on the Russian psyche. Allegedly the daughter of the Chechnyan black widow Khava Afandi—Connor had initially dismissed the stories of a woman stabbing and garrotting Russian soldiers in the back streets of Kherson as a myth.

However, Connor had been sent to Ukraine after Grace had been kidnapped under the orders of Vitali Agron.

The former Ukrainian Special Forces commander and ultra-nationalist had decided that one of the best ways to hurt Russia back then was to inflame international Islamic hatred towards her to the point of global Jihad.

To achieve this, he had young Tatar girls kidnapped and began murdering them under the guise that the right-wing Russian nationalists had been doing it under the ‘blind’ eye of the Russian state.

With Roza’s help, Connor saved Grace and the remaining children before it reached the ignition point. He then assassinated Agron in his own way.

He had last seen Roza almost five years ago.

She had been disconcertingly nonchalant in killing people—she would have reminded him now of a cross between Ben Affleck’s character in ‘The Accountant’ and Jeffery Dahmer if Connor didn’t sense she took a small pleasure from each kill.

She was almost scarily good at it.

He guessed Roza to be a few years older than him, maybe, with dark hair and eyes hinting at Mongolian somewhere in her bloodline.

He wouldn’t have described her as pretty exactly but guessed that was partially down to a complete absence of a smile or makeup. Handsome, perhaps.

Her physique bordered on the squat side like he imagined typical of an English peasant woman from over a hundred years ago.

“I wasn’t sure you would be still alive,” said Connor.

“I was thinking the same about you. Your message came as a surprise,” she replied.

His eyebrows briefly neared one another—when they had first met, her English had been almost monosyllabic.

“Then why didn’t you reply?”

“The Russian Government have become sophisticated at tracking our electronic communications. I could not take the risk they had caught you.”

“I’ll tell you what has become sophisticated is your English.”

“Thank you,” she answered without elaboration. “What brings you here?”

“Wait. How did you know the FSB had taken me?”

“Our organisation has eyes everywhere. Within Russian military units. Within Russian police units. Within Russian FSB units.”

“So, the Povernuto lives on.”

The Povernuto was a Crimean Tatar paramilitary group, which translated into English as The Returned—a reference to the mass Tatar deportation during World War II and their coming back.

The group had caused significant damage to the Russian military psyche when the masked Russian soldiers without insignia—the ‘Little Green Men’—marched into Crimea.

All sorts of rumours abounded, but Jaime and Connor’s best guess was that the Saudis were funding them in retaliation for Russia’s cosying up to the Shia Iranians.

“We work mostly as the eyes and ears of the Ukrainians. But we still have teeth when we need to have them.”

The Yorkshireman asked, “A lady was picked up with me at the checkpoint. She was very kind to me. You don’t happen to know what happened to her?”

“She was taken into custody. For what purpose, we do not know. Perhaps to ask questions.”

Connor fought the feeling in his stomach down.

“Is there anything your organisation can do?”

The rebel fighter shook her head and said, “We can monitor her movements. But she is in the system now.”

He compartmentalised his guilt and fear and jutted his chin towards the men to her rear.

“You sure your mates are comfortable with you spilling the beans about your sneaky-beaky group to a Westerner?”

Connor saw a ghost of a smile appear on her face.

She looked over her shoulder and spoke in Crimean Tartar—a Kipchak Turkic his ears barely recognised, let alone understood.

The tallest and oldest-looking of the group slung his weapon behind his back and walked towards Connor.

The Englishman glanced at his jaw but resolved to simply avoid any damage the man was about to inflict upon him.

Instead, he began to speak to him in Crimean Tartar—but on observing the moisture creep into his eyes, Connor guessed the gist of the words without Roza’s subsequent translation.

“He is thanking you for saving his daughter. She now lives in France. She is doing very well at school and taking her college exams. She wants to be a chef.”

After the translation, the man said in stilted English, “Thank you for to put your life to save my daughter.”

As he bowed, so did the others.

When the man turned to leave, Connor grasped his shoulder and asked, “What is her name?”

Roza translated, and he said, “Ralina.”

Connor said, “Tell Ralina she better fucking smash those exams because I don’t want to be paying for a meal the next time I am in Paris.”

“Smash?” asked Roza.

“Yeah… smash… as in do well.”

She translated, and the man laughed.

The group dispersed, and Roza asked, “So, what are you doing here?”

Connor hadn’t planned on this—he wasn’t sure where her empathies lay.

Still, he didn’t want to lie unless he had to.

“You know I am not simply a criminal. I am… ahem—”

“You work for the British Government as an agent.”

“Kind of. Not quite.”

“Kind of?”

“I was recruited by a man who had his unit almost entirely independent of British Security Services.”

“‘Had’? This is the past tense, no?”

“He’s more integrated with them now.”

“Who do you work for now?”

“The same organisation but Ciara runs it now. You remember her? She was—”

“The Shield Maiden.”

“A female warrior in Norse mythology,” said Connor, instantly imagining Ciara as one.

“Yes,” replied Roza. “So what is your mission?”

“We have information that the Iranians are wishing to enter their proxies into a state of perpetual warfare that could cost millions of Israeli, Palestinian, Lebanese and other Middle Eastern actors’ lives.”

She regarded him with a deep frown and said, “Anyone with the internet could tell you that.”

Connor nodded at the admonishment and said, “Wishing and having the means are two different things. There are rumours that there is an individual who is orchestrating these operations. You know that if the next global war happens anytime soon, it’ll be in the Middle East.”

“There is never just one individual.”

This reminded him of something his father told him when Connor was a teen: “There is no such thing as a self-made man. There might indeed be a man as a main driver, but to say you’re self-made isn’t just disrespectful to the people who have helped you, but it’s just another way of saying, ‘My goals were so small that a single individual could accomplish them.”‘

Connor answered, “True, but many an organisation has been significantly undermined once an individual has gone.”

“So, what is your plan?”

“My family has been running imports into the EU for Leonid Honchar.”

“Odessa Mafia?”

“Yes.”

He paused to gauge her reaction, but she simply said, “Then why are you in Crimea?”

“Because the Russians gave him permission to work out of Sevastopol.”

“And?”

“He has various smuggling operations going on within the Black Sea. I need to get to the Caucasus.”

“Why?”

Connor sighed to himself—he couldn’t afford to lie to her.

“Because there is a weapon of mass destruction on its way through there. We have intelligence that suggests it’s to be stolen.”

“Why?”

“We are not sure. One guess is that it is to be set off in Tel Aviv so that the blame can be pointed at Iran. It’ll be carte blanche for World War III.”

“So you are to go there and intercept—by yourself?”

Connor once again realised how absurd the plan sounded when spoken aloud. Still, it wasn’t the first time.

“Yeah.”

25

Naftali Avidan opened the door of the prime minister’s office to find David Nazzal already sitting in one of the leather chairs.

A thick, polished oak desk squatted in front of the Shin Bet chief, with an Israeli flag stand separating the desk from the shelves filled with books.

Nazzal stood, and when the two men shook hands, Avidan resisted the urge to squeeze hard.

He sat and said in English, “He is not often late.”

“Maybe it is a tactic—letting us let off steam before he gets here.”

“You letting me blow off steam, old friend? I cautioned against this. And—”

The door opened, and the prime minister entered.

“Gentlemen, apologies for my lateness. Much needs my attention at this time, as you can imagine.”

And we have all the time in the world, thought Avidan disdainfully.

The prime minister skirted around the desk, sat and asked, “So we got him then?”

Avidan shook his head. “No reliable chatter indicates that is the case. Also, none of the senior members of the differing organisations have been reported to be present. It seems the intelligence was faulty.”

Nazzal stared at him momentarily before announcing, “The intel was not faulty. Prime Minister, we have information that the key members were switched for proxies of lesser importance after the meeting Avi Teper had relayed our findings before the strike.”

“This is absurd,” snapped Avidan. “I’d still be interested to know where this information originated. Shabak’s performance has not been stellar this last year.”

“It is interesting that the prime minster was also at the meeting and doesn’t display the same defensiveness to what I have just said.”

“We all know what you’re insinuating, David.”

“I have made a statement. Not an insinuation. I am happy to open source the information as long as it stays amongst the men in this room this time.”

“I would like that.”

The Shin Bet chief opened his briefcase and handed both men a twenty-five-page document.

The Mossad boss flicked through the document and said, “What good are these? Most of it is redacted.”

Nazzal said it more to the prime minister, but Avidan answered, “Given the potential security breach, we felt it necessary.”

“A security breach that could have easily come from your side.”

“Correct.”

The prime minister spoke, “How do we find this… informant?”

The domestic security chief said, “I suggest the old-fashioned way—a Canary Trap.”

“A barium meal test,” said the foreign spymaster, using the less well-known name for a method of disinformation used to expose informants.

The technique involved issuing sensitive information to the suspected party or parties and observing.

Though many confused the two, a Canary Trap dealt with documents, whereas a barium meal test could deliver the information in any form.

The prime minister smiled. “Strange, I read ‘A Clash of Kings’—Tyrion Lannister uses the trap to find out which member of the king’s small council is reporting to his sister.”

“Maybe George RR Martin knows of our techniques,” said Nazzal, his grin matching the prime minister’s. “Perhaps you should send a Kidon to interrogate him.”

The prime minister cut off Avidan’s retort, “So we agree on the need and strategy to find this informant?”

Avidan felt his windpipe cool.

“Fine,” he said. “I will run one my end and report back.”

“Yes, I will do the same.”

“That is settled then,” said the prime minister.

Avidan frowned. “Excuse me, sir, but you seem calm enough to say we missed all our proposed targets.”

“We might have missed those, but we achieved our objective—they know now they are never safe from us, no matter where they go. And their feeble rocket attack proves they cannot hurt us.”

Bruce sat in the black wicker chair with a polished redwood table separating him from Adina—his new companion.

When the waitress left with their drinks order, Adina asked, “Are you in the habit of picking strange women off the street?

“No, you are the first.” Bruce smiled. “I’ll have to tell you that I am in a relationship and not looking to be unfaithful.”

“Oh my, what a way to let a gal down,” she answered with a half-smile. “Then why have you invited me?”

“I seem to remember you inviting yourself.”

“Nooo, you said that I owed you for the beer you didn’t get to finish.”

“Exactly, I was after money, not company.”

When he saw her eyes trying to discern his seriousness, he afforded her a smile and said, “You just seemed like an interesting person to talk to.”

“Oh, why is that?”

“I’ve not met Israelis a similar age to myself who would have publicly defended the Palestinians like you did in the current climate.”

“Are you Israeli?” she asked with a quizzical look on her face.

“No. I am not even Jewish. Like I said, I am just interested.”

The waitress arrived with their drinks: a Goldstar beer for him and a Limonana cocktail for her.

They both took a sip, and Adina leant forward. “You know, there was a time when it wasn’t difficult to support both the people of Palestine and Israel—which was different from supporting their leaders.”

“So, what happened?”

“What always happens—when the people who voted for those leaders feel disillusioned and ignored, they turn to something much worse. Mizrahi Jews and religious Jews felt marginalised by the secular Ashkenazi left-wing government—if the Israeli Labour Party had been a little more accommodating, we wouldn’t have the right-wing terrorists that are in power. If the Palestinian Authority had been less overtly corrupt, Gaza might not be run by a death cult.”

“Unfortunately, being a centrist comes across to the voters as uncertain instead of pragmatic.”

“You’re not just a ‘tall drink of water’, are you?” she stated.

“Thank you,” he said, taking another mouthful. “Who knows, maybe there’ll be an Israeli-Arab as prime minister one day. It wasn’t that long ago that the idea of a black US president seemed laughable to some.”

A forlorn smile spread across her face, and she said, “Sometimes, I doubt it would make any difference who was in power.”

“Why’s that?” asked Bruce, already guessing the answer.

“Because too many people either profit off the conflict or have their identities or social status tied to it.”

“At all levels, too.”

“Exactly. What good is a freedom fighter or soldier without an enemy? How can an arms manufacturer make money if there isn’t a necessity to buy? How can you report on a war zone if there isn’t one? How can a political leader take a strong stance when there isn’t anything to stand for or against?” she said before saying seemingly to herself, “And how can a man be heroic without adversity?”

Connor had sat in the bumpy darkness of the back of a Beyna Yilmaz LTD truck amidst the faint aroma of cotton and dust.

The company specialised in curtains, so he sat sandwiched between a high stack of velvet red and gold ripple fold to his right and blue and yellow cotton tailored pleat to his left.

Against the far left side stood a high wooden polished cupboard.

Other fabric sheets lay in nylon-strapped blocks through the truck bed.

Before they had set off, one of Roza’s men had obtained a ‘clean’ smartphone for him.

Connor had downloaded a suite of operational apps, including one that essentially created two phones in one. The standard display was a regular phone, but a specific sequence of swipes and app taps would open the rest of the operational interface.

If a call came through to the operational phone, it couldn’t be answered on the standard interface. Instead, it would come through as an alarm and require the aforementioned swipes and taps to be answered.

Another app feature would be that it could seamlessly interchange GPS with the Russian satellite navigation system GLONASS.

Still, he hadn’t checked it despite being in the back of this truck for hours. He contemplated the rarity of a Western man being alone with his thoughts for a significant time.

Even before the advent of attention-throttling phones, there were newspapers and magazines. Maybe they weren’t alone with their thoughts even back in the Palaeolithic Era—it wouldn’t have been wise to venture out alone when sabre-tooth cats, cave bears and giant hyenas roamed their stomping ground.

An infantry unit was one place a European could find undistracted thought—on long forced marches or pulling sentry duty in the still of the night. Though a soldier was meant to keep alert on these evolutions and tasks, invariably, the mind wandered—just as it was doing now.

He had managed a brief message exchange with Ciara via their email, adhering to the security protocols—his next check-in wouldn’t be until he’d found a way to Georgia.

Unlike his previous missions, the objective wasn’t quite as clear-cut this time.

Did this Lisan al-Gaib-like figure even exist? There were no pictures or even a recording of his voice.

Ironically, his doubts that Roza existed were only truly extinguished once he had met her.

Connor’s mind drifted to Islam and Jihad. The Ryder crime family had close links to Zain Aziz, a criminal Godfather of Bradford—the city next to Leeds.

Connor had once asked him in private, “How do these Muslim Jihadists justify targeting non-combatants?”

“If those are citizens that have voted in a government that is causing misery in their country, then these Jihadists don’t see ‘em as innocents.”

When Connor had pointed out the holes in that argument, Aziz shrugged. “Very few grown men are innocent in this world.”

Connor had studied Islam extensively, though he had stopped short of fully reading the Quran.

He had read about the Islamic eschatology regarding the one they referred to as Mahdi.

Though he featured in both Shia and Sunni Islam, they had differing beliefs as to who exactly he was, his attributes and the details of the circumstances that would affect his appearance.

However, the general concept revolved around the idea that Mahdi will come towards the end of times, as the world is in a perpetual state of anarchy, chaos, the breakdown of deference to Islamic law amongst its followers and civil war amongst Muslim brothers.

He understood that the Shia sect believe the Mahdi has already been born and is currently concealed—a belief known as Occultation.

The Sunnis believe that he has yet to be born and are, generally, less sure of his emergence than the Shia sect.

What had frightened some Western and Sunni observers and political leaders was the belief that the Shia Iranians believed that they should be paving the way for the Mahdi—which could be interpreted as creating the circumstances for his arrival.

And he also knew this was the reason why most countries, especially the Israelis, the Americans and the Saudis, could not abide the idea of a nuclear Iran.

He felt the vehicle slowing and heard the coded banging from the driver’s cabin.

Roza had told him that the route he would go on could circumvent all but the last checkpoint in Sevastopol.

Her people had created a false back in the high cupboard crammed with reams of folded fabrics, rod brackets, tiebacks and other accessories.

Connor waggled the cupboard to create a gap. A black Marlow rope with its hook attached to the side poked through the hole at the back.

The agent manipulated the back off its grooves before getting inside on the braided rope and re-clipping the back on.

He pulled on the black Marlow to assist him in rejigging the cupboard flush to the wall of the truck.

The black Marlow pressed against his stomach, and he resigned himself to the wait.

It was a further ten minutes until the engine’s air compressor hiss indicated a complete halt.

Muffled voices.

A scraping.

Barking.

Fuck’s sake, he hissed to himself as his adrenaline bolted.

Calm yourself. They’ll be looking for weapons, ammunition or drugs—not human traffic.

Connor lamented how often he had to use internal, or even occasionally external, monologue to soothe his nervous system.

That said, he’d been familiar with the practice since boyhood. His father had taught him when Connor’s adrenaline had run riot before his juvenile boxing matches.

“Instead of thinking, ‘He’s massive,’ think, ‘He’ll have struggled like fuck to make weight.’ Instead of, ‘Look at his broken nose, he must be hard as fuck,’ think, ‘He must be easy to hit.’ And if you’re scared of getting stopped, use that fear to remind yourself to look out your eyebrows, keep your chin tucked and make sure the opposite hand protects your jaw as the other is punching.”

However, there wasn’t much action Connor could currently take other than to keep quiet.

He straightened at the sound of the truck’s back bolts being lifted.

Light crept through the hinges.

The voices clearer.

The scrabbling of paws and heavy canine panting, sniffing and finally barking.

The stomping of boots.

Then human, Slavic barking.

Was he ordering me out? thought Connor, trying to decipher the shouted Russian.

He imagined a barrel of an AK-105 pointed directly at him. Imagined the 5.45mm rounds punching through him with flesh-tearing, bone-crunching force.

Other voices joined. Calmer, which soothed the human barking one, who soothed the canine barking one.

A conversation. No, a negotiation. Voices raised. Voices lowered.

Boots walking. The bed of the truck decompressing. Roller shutter coming down.

Bolts locked.

Engine starting.

Truck pulling away.

26

Avi Teper wandered around the vast converted aircraft hangar as had been his habit every time he came here.

Meteorite Motorcycles was more of a distribution warehouse for the other motorcycle shops.

However, if one wanted a particular motorcycle and was willing to dispense with the Middle Eastern practice of haggling, Meteorite could get it for you.

But you automatically received a thirty per cent discount if you worked for Israeli Security Services.

The air conditioning rubbed him down through his clothes as he meandered in and around the admiring observers as if in a museum.

Only previous buyers were permitted into the warehouse itself—first-time buyers were not allowed to peruse the bikes back here.

He had been introduced to motorcycles as a young soldier in the IDF—he had fond memories of riding converted 750 Stradas and Le Mans 850s.

The hanging lights of the warehouse bathed each bike in all its glory.

Another feature of being a Meteorite Motorcycle member was a specialist on-site workshop catering to customising and repairing any bikes sold under their banner.

His black candy cherry 2018 Honda Gold Wing had a minor GPS fault.

When he called, he expected them to offer to fix it that day, which was the norm.

However, they rescheduled for five days after they told him they had a new Indian Roadmaster coming in, to which he had expressed an interest.

Avi smiled when he saw it had a reserved ticket, his name and a hand-drawn smiley face.

Avi liked it, but despite himself, his eyes kept flicking to the black BMW R18 Transcontinental two bikes to his right.

Unfortunately, Avi swore to his grandfather that he would never buy German. He remembered gleefully pointing out his grandfather’s hypocrisy in buying a Grundig television, only for the wily old man to counter that Philips—a Dutch corporation—had fully bought them out in 1993.

Dudi Steele, one of the young shop workers, appeared at the counter at the far end and shouted, “Avi. It’s ready.”

Avi smiled—he wasn’t a feared Shabak officer here but simply a loyal customer.

When he reached the counter, Dudi said, “It’s waiting for you in the back.”

“Not the front?”

Dudi shook his head. “Beni is here. He’s worked on it for you. You know how he is.”

Indeed, Avi did.

Beni owned the place and others like it around the Middle East and now in Europe.

Despite being a multimillionaire, the nearly fifty-year-old, with the greying cropped scalp and almost permanent two days stubble, had told him once, “I like to get my hands dirty—keeps me grounded.”

Due to his business interests, Beni was away for much of the year.

He knocked on the door with a black and white print of Steve McQueen on a Triumph TR6 and walked in.

Beni sat behind his wooden corner unit, which displayed an intricate carving of a Honda VTR1000 Firestorm.

The same image had been embroidered on the left pectoral of the beige hoodie Beni wore, separating the words ‘Meteorite’ and ‘Motorcycles’.

Behind him hung a variety of different coloured and shaped helmets in three rows of three.

An aromatic blend of paint, WD-40, cleaning products and cherry air fresher hung in the air.

The huge steel-plated workbench in the centre matched the rest of the room’s confusion on whether to be a workshop or a storage unit.

Avi could see stacks of folded T-shirts and sweaters on the workbench’s underside shelves, no doubt logoed ‘Meteorite Motorcycles’.

Beni straightened from his laptop, flicking the top panel down.

“Shalom, Avi, missing your Goldwing?”

“Yes,” said Avi, walking closer. “It’ll be worth the wait to get her out again.”

“I apologise, Avi. I am meant to be thinking of slowing down now, but I am busier than ever with openings. I must have done more air miles these past few years than anyone not a pilot.”

“Where did you go this time?”

“Around Turkey—a lot of bikes, mainly mopeds and scooters like most in our Middle East, but we cater to all.”

“Seems to be all those people ride,” sneered Avi. “How do they feel about buying from a Jew?”

“I usually wear a thawb and being a fluent Arabic speaker helps. If they probe—being from Rahat helps,” said Beni, mentioning his hometown, which happened to have the most Arabs of any Israeli city.

“I suppose their money is just as good as anyone’s,” said Avi.

Beni smiled. “In business, I would remind you to take heed of the Torah’s commandment Leviticus 19:18—Ve-ahavta le-re’akha kamokha.”

“Love thy neighbour as thyself,” translated Avi.

“Which reminds me,” started Beni. “When will you permanently move into your neighbour’s house?”

“I have been advised to put in my transfer papers at the end of my secondment.”

It occurred to Avi that of the informants and messengers he ran or helped run, only Beni knew of anything of his personal and professional life.

“It’ll be exciting times then,” said Beni. “You’ll get out of here, and they’ll start sending you all over the Middle East and beyond.”

Avi laughed. “Perhaps I can visit one of your shops and rent a bike.”

“It would be my pleasure,” said Beni. “Now, have you got something for me?”

Avi surprised himself in that he had almost forgotten. He fished out the smartphone from his pocket and handed it over.

“The code is 071023. The document is in the download—a one-view before automatic deletion.”

Beni saluted with the phone. “Come on, let’s get you back on your Goldwing.”

Bruce deleted the message with a rushing sense of relief.

Jaime had sent him a message to inform him that Connor was safe and had reached Sevastopol. No other information had been provided thus far.

Bruce hadn’t been sure if he was happier with the news regarding his well-being or that the mission was proceeding as planned.

He distracted himself by looking out the train’s window as the sweeping landscape rushed by.

The former Para reminisced how alive train rides made him feel as a teenager.

And the nerves and excitement of that first journey from Glasgow to Catterick, North Yorkshire, to begin basic training.

At the time, Bruce was seventeen years and five months old, which meant he had just escaped being a ‘junior soldier’ by turning eighteen within days of passing recruit training.

He was the youngest Parachute Regiment Tom they’d sent up to Battalion for a year or two.

He now thought of Catterick—and Aldershot—as two of those magical places where an individual goes in as one thing and emerges forged into something greater.

There were other places or commissions that fit this description: universities, Centres of Excellence in sport, martial arts dojos—depending on the art and trade apprenticeships, to name but a few.

However, Bruce doubted many undertakings could manifest such a dramatic transformation as quickly as elite military training.

He remembered one of the screaming instructors—a short, wiry man—making him come down to his level by bending his knees into an awkward half-squat stress position every time he addressed Bruce, much to the rest of the recruits’ barely concealed amusement.

However, Bruce performed well in infantry training and in fear-inducing, sleep-depriving, lung-bursting, body-fatiguing, brain-exhausting, ego-stripping P-Company selection.

He lamented on the modern-day misdiagnosing of post-service depression for PTSD, as if the former shouldn’t merit the same sympathies.

Bruce counted himself lucky that he hadn’t suffered from the former and had had the latter successfully treated by John Waldron, the deceased brother of his best friend, Joe, after a particularly harrowing mission just before the turn of the century.

John Waldron had been older than his brother and, therefore, Bruce by some nine years. And he had done a five-year stint in the Foreign Legion before returning to the UK to retrain as a psychotherapist and counsellor.

It had been John’s seniority and that he had seen some shot and shell himself, which encouraged Bruce to try it.

That and Joe’s insistence that he would never speak to him again if he didn’t.

And that John happened to turn up at Joe’s house later that day.

The elder Waldron brother had given him his first session of Eye Movement Desensitisation—a relatively new technique at the time, with only a handful of clinical studies supporting its efficacy.

However, after five sessions within two months, the symptoms largely alleviated, and despite the traumatic events he had been involved in subsequent to it, they never really came back.

He thought about Connor—Bruce had been involved in plenty of arduous operations in his Parachute Regiment, special forces and black operations careers. And he had killed many more people than anyone else he knew personally and maybe of.

And yet, he suspected Connor of having either surpassed him or at least gained on him in both.

At times, thoughts invaded his psyche as to whether all the carnage and killings he had carried out and ordered others to carry out had been worth it. Did he perpetuate conflict to feed his identity?

Bruce quickly dismissed such thoughts by analysing the number of lives he estimated he had saved, and he hoped Connor could do the same.

In not much more than half a decade, Bruce, and now Ciara, had sent Connor as far as Japan to combat some of the world’s most dangerous people and organisations.

Not only had he survived, but he did not seem to manifest signs that his mental health had been compromised.

Or maybe he hides it well, thought Bruce.

And Connor now had to deal with something Bruce never had—the knowledge of progeny.

He hadn’t seen any shift in Connor’s professionalism because of it yet, but it was early days.

He remembered seeing an opportunity in the younger Connor all those years ago—a man with the audacity to kill the bodyguards of a high-profile politician before kidnapping him despite a lack of training.

If a man had a killer’s intent, then the rest of the skills could be acquired.

However, the prodigy’s biggest selling point was that he came from a family of career criminals; Bruce could insert him into some of the world’s most dangerous landscapes under the guise of conducting ‘business’.

This had been the case more than once, including after the Ryder family began assisting the Odessa Mafia with importing drugs around Europe.

The family had also benefitted from links with both the Albanian Mafia and the Japanese Gādian Yakuza.

Bruce’s phone vibrated—on looking, he could see it informed him of a new intelligence report from Ibrahim.

Bruce had positioned himself at the back corner of the train to cut any angle of view that any other passenger, or the cameras, might have of his laptop screen.

He fired it up and went through all the security protocols.

Ibrahim and his team had been tracking Avi Teper as much as they could or dared.

They had lost him a few times in the four days. Bruce knew it to be a pointless exercise—a target had to be tracked for weeks to establish patterns.

Apart from his office and residence, Avi had visited a deli twice, a motorcycle shop once, two fuel stations and a nail salon to collect his wife.

The passion for motorcycles was a pleasant and interesting quirk to Bruce. He had never had the pull to learn to ride one—the admin of getting into leathers and the lack of shelter from the elements had put him off.

Bruce’s mind formed an open loop as he looked out the window.

He thought of how he met contacts. Then he thought of any constraints Avi would be under that he might not be.

As the train began to slow for its arrival in the coastal city of Ashkelon in the Southern District of Israel, he began to type his instructions to Jaime.

His mind wandered to Connor and surmised how much more dangerous Crimea was now since the last time the Englishman had visited.

Leonid Honchar remembered a time when he had put on a mask of friendliness to attempt to entice strangers to play chess with him.

But that was in Odessa, not here in Sevastopol.

The Odessa Mafia didn’t have a ‘boss of bosses’ as such, as unlike the Russian Bratva, it was more a loose collection of gangs, but Honchar now stood as the closest thing to it.

A few years back, Honchar had been taking advantage of Putin’s propaganda drive to renovate Crimea to show the world it was better in Russian rather than Ukrainian hands.

Honchar, Jewish, as most were in the Ukrainian Mafia, had acted as a broker for Jewish investment in the area.

Hotels, sports recreation centres, multi-apartment blocks, offices and other buildings had been protected and overseen.

Why he, a Ukrainian, had been given this task and not the Russian Mafia had been made clear to him by the Governor of Sevastopol himself after Honchar had found himself under the ruse of arrest.

The governor explained that they wanted proof of foreign investment to attract more foreign investment. In a coded language Honchar was fluent in, he also explained which companies would be used for the labour, tools, materials and other supplies.

Agreements were drawn up and adhered to, and it had been fruitful all around.

Except that Honchar had to stay in Sevastopol and not his original base of power in Odessa.

And the crime lord missed it sometimes, so he always made it a point to visit the park in the centre of Sevastopol to play chess.

His chess game had improved over here—back in Odessa, he was often forced to play his bodyguards due to his fearsome reputation.

However, here, he had competed with an assortment of different people.

He checkmated his current opponent, a man of similar age with his pristinely ironed bright white collar matching his flat cap.

The two men shook hands and promised one another a rematch for the following week.

Leonid took out and popped open the silver pocket case to reveal his Sobranie Black Russian cigarettes with the gold filters.

The Ukrainian had noticed a few years ago the yellowing tinge between his fingers that wouldn’t go away after a few scrubs as it used to.

Just when he thought this might merit quitting, a business associate sent him a gold necklace with the pendant being a cobra wrapped around a skeleton hand.

The skeleton hand attached to his thumb, and the cobra’s jaws clamped to his cigarette.

He inhaled, and the fine, sweet and citric tastes danced with one another on his tongue. It made him smile that though these were considered ‘luxury’ in Russia, they were still cheaper than in the West due to their governments’ incessant taxation.

Leonid had a local roster of four bodyguards—two huge men for deterrence, a discreet man and a woman.

Viktoria Merleni’s presence in settings such as these did not immediately scream ‘bodyguard’—not only did the thirty-two-year-old hide her femininity under a casual, loose red and white FC Spartak Moscow hoodie but most wouldn’t guess that the royal blue baby stroller contained a doll and a GSh-18 pistol.

Leonid could see that the noirette’s face to be sharp and symmetrical, but the shark-like eyes and the complete lack of warm expression stopped him thinking of her as pretty.

The taller-than-average woman, though thoroughly well-versed in the brutal Russian martial art of Systema, also carried a powerful stun gun disguised as an umbrella.

She read—or at least pretended to—a copy of ‘Tayny Zvezd’—Secrets of Stars. It took him a moment to recognise that the woman on the cover was a famous former ballerina whose beauty he had once greatly admired.

Now, her filler-puffed cheeks and forehead squashed her eyes so that she resembled more a Mongolian goat herder than a Slavic princess.

Viktoria stood from her position, removing the umbrella stun gun as the voice ran a bolt through his spine.

“Good to see my present isn’t going to waste, Leonid.”

Connor Reed stood before him in an olive, almost military-style jacket and dark cargo trousers. Leonid had admired the Englishman’s fashion sense when they had first met. By the fit of these clothes, he guessed they belonged to someone else.

He hadn’t changed much physically; maybe the eyes radiated a greater sense of himself, and the lines on the face had perhaps deepened, but it wasn’t easy to tell.

The mafioso boss held up a hand, instantly returning Viktoria to the bench.

“I think you must be a mind-reader—I do not like the stains on my fingers.”

“Luckily for you, I am a dab hand at the double tap technique on the claw-grabber machines in arcades. Didn’t take me long to get the egg I wanted.”

The Englishman said it so dryly that he briefly wondered if it could be true.

Leonid asked, “Are we having a game?”

“Of course, that’s why I have come—to avenge my previous defeat.”

The mafia crime lord smiled—he had been almost certain that Reed had allowed him to win their only game around five years ago.

Reed sat and began to return the pieces into position.

“They are passing a law to ban this in the UK.”

Leonid shook his head. “They are not.”

“Am telling ya,” said Reed. “The queen protects the king, and the whites move first—a very misogynistic and racist game.”

Leonid had begun to get used to the Englishman’s strange humour and asked, “Whites or blacks?”

“Well, looks like I’ll be moving first,” replied Connor. “Speaking of queens protecting kings, I am glad to see you employing a female bodyguard. Very modern of you, Leonid. Unless she’s cheaper.”

“She is more money.”

“That’s good—if I had a pound for every time my girlfriend complained about the gender pay gap, she’d have seventy pence!”

It took a moment, but then Leonid let loose a genuine belly laugh before asking, “You have a girlfriend?”

“For the purposes of the joke, I do.”

The two men made their opening salvos.

Leonid asked, “We could have played this game… online.”

“Sometimes it’s better to see the person’s eyes.”

“I agree,” answered Leonid, and he did. “I am impressed you have made it through a war zone to see me.”

He took a pawn.

“Thank you,” replied Connor, taking a bishop.

“So, what do you want?”

Connor said, “There is this Buddhist parable. A man is standing on the banks of a torrid river. It’s rainy season—if he can’t get to the other side, he’s gonna fucking die. He’s watched a bit of ‘Bear Grylls’, so he builds a raft and crosses. In joyous relief, he lifts the raft and heads towards the forest. But as he attempts to make his way through the dense tree cover, the raft is knocking into trees and catching in vines, yanking him back and pissing him off. To survive, he’s got to leave the bastard behind—the same vessel that saved his life yesterday is the same one that will kill him today if he does not let it go.”

“That is… how would you say… deep.”

“I learnt it from a great black American philosopher.”

“Martin Luther King?”

“No, Will Smith.”

The Ukrainian took a rook and said, “I do not know how the story translates to your current needs.”

“I haven’t long heard it, so I was just looking for an opportunity to shoehorn it into conversation.”

“Why have you come to see me?”

Connor said, “I need discreet passage to the port of Poti on the Georgian coast.”

Honchar took another pawn. “Why?”

“You know I would never lie to you, Leonid,” said Connor. “But there are some things I would like to keep to myself.”

“Who am I?”

“You’re the one who rescued all those Tatar children from the crazy Ukrainian Special Forces commander Vitali Agron years ago.”

Leonid watched Connor’s face dissolve into an expressionless mask. When he said nothing, Leonid continued, “My source tells me you know precisely how to use an array of weapons. How to stalk and fight in a forest. How to kill many of the enemy in a building. So, I know you are not simply a criminal who is excellent with his fists. I know you are something more.”

“Something more in what way?”

“I think you work as an undercover agent.”

Leonid watched the Englishman take one of his knights and answered, “You think I arrived here in an Aston Martin.”

“No,” said the Ukrainian. “But you arrived. I do not know of any simple criminal who would have the balls and skill to get through a war zone just to meet me for a deal I might reject. You either have had help or high-level skills. Or both. I have thought of this since you came to Odessa all those years ago.”

“If that’s the case, why did you continue our business relationship?”

Leonid laughed. “Because any crimes I would be arrested for would fall on your family, too.”

“I might have got them immunity.”

“Immunity is given to those who have committed the lesser crime—not an equal crime.”

“We could say that my family is a small cog, whereas you’re a kingpin of a much larger criminal enterprise.”

Leonid took another pawn and said, “Are you trying to make me make you disappear?”

“No, I am just curious to your thought process.”

“When you get to our level, you realise that at the top of law enforcing agencies, they like… stability. I am sure your family knows of this.”

He watched Connor’s lower lip curl out and nod.

“You and your family should be afraid of I being a shchur for you. You know what this word means?”

“Rat.”

“Yes. A rat. And you are not a child—you know that no one under God’s eyes can now move millions and millions of anything illegal without the police knowing. You have to give them something. I am to be clear to you?”

“You are clear.”

“So,” said Leonid as they continued to play, “why do you need transport to Georgia?”

The two men stared at one another before the Englishman answered, “After their initial offensive failed to take Kyiv, the Russians had radiological weapons placed in Novorossiysk.”

Despite already knowing this, Leonid kept his expression neutral and said, “And?”

“They have decided to move them back east of Moscow. One is to be sent to Northern Dagestan for decommissioning. Only, it will be intercepted en route—and this one will be exploded. We think in Tel Aviv. The attack will be attributed to Iran via Hezbollah. Then World War III begins.”

Leonid—an expert in deceitful men after a lifetime of dealing with them—knew Connor to be telling the truth. And said, “You do know I am Jewish—not just in name.”

“I heard,” said Connor.

Leonid felt his anger rise and said, “The Jewish people should know that the international community will not help them. There are sixteen million Jews in the world—but two billion Muslims persecute them!”

“Then you should know more than anyone how a global war would be terrible for business.”

The Englishman moved his queen in such a way as to checkmate Leonid.

The Ukrainian stared at the board for a few long moments.

Finally, he picked up his head to meet Connor’s eyes.

“I will see you into Georgia—from there on in, you are on your own.”

27

Bruce sat within the confines of a copper leather swivel chair positioned at a circular glass table.

Ten floors up, he had a view of an assortment of white, beige, and cream buildings punctuated by swimming pools in front of the beach.

The sun’s belly began to touch the sea, and he allowed himself to be briefly hypnotised by the scene.

His phone pulsed, and he seemed to know telepathically it was Adriana despite not assigning a specific vibration to her.

“Hello.”

“Hello yourself,” she said. “What you up to?”

“I am currently looking out to sea and watching the sunset.”

“No doubt attempting to solve a work problem instead of just appreciating the view.”

“You’re only half right,” he replied. “I learnt long ago that sometimes the best way for an answer to come to you is to send it away to the ‘think box’ by concentrating on something else.”

“Oh my. Next, it’ll be yoga and chants.”

He knew her to be teasing but feigned ignorance. “I think I’ll be taking up yoga—might help me in my old age.”

He expected further teasing, but instead, she said, “I think that is a wonderful idea, and I would like to do that with you.”

“I think not—you’ll be cramping my style in front of all the dolly birds.”

“It is entirely your prerogative if you wish to have an affair—just as it is my prerogative to serve two life sentences.”

Bruce smiled; despite what she had just said, Adriana didn’t fit the profile of a ‘fiery Italian’—maybe because she was half-Albanian, though they weren’t exactly known for their serenity.

She would probably just leave him and never speak to him again.

And break my heart, he thought suddenly.

“You know,” he said cautiously, “maybe when I get back, we should go away somewhere.”

“Yeah, we need a holiday.”

“Yeah, sort of.”

“Why else would we go away?”

“Just, err… you know.”

“No, I do not know. Cat got your tongue?”

“No, it is just… We’ll have this conversation when I get—”

“The answer is yes.”

Bruce stopped himself from feigning ignorance and said, “Let me ask you properly when I get back.”

“I’ll let you go through the social mores if it makes you feel better,” she said before reading his mind with, “And I am happy for it to be just you and I, you sister, nieces and my brother and nephews.”

“Thank you.”

“Now get back to work.”

“Aye, missus.”

She clicked off.

The sun began to drag a sky of dark purple into the sea.

Bruce opened his laptop to read the latest from Jaime.

After around forty minutes of reading Jaime’s information regarding his Israel investigation, he felt a glimmer in his stomach as he read the report on ‘Meteorite Motorcycles’.

Though ‘Meteorite Motorcycles’ growth hadn’t been exactly meteoric, it had been as regular as clockwork for the last seven years.

Usually, a business growth graph resembled a rising wavy line—this seemed suspiciously straight.

Bruce had studied many a business growth graph in his time, and even the successful ones experienced dips where they’d had to invest heavily in product development or advertising.

And the motorcycle distribution centres had expanded into some unusual locations—Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Cyprus, Turkey and Iran.

This wasn’t unusual in and of itself if it had kept the locality to the Middle East, but the records showed that a shop had opened in Crimea, Dagestan and Copenhagen.

It then occurred to him—people walking in with motorcycle helmets on wouldn’t be perceived as too unusual.

A secret meeting place in plain sight, thought Bruce.

Next, he looked at the personalities involved—Benyamine Mizrahi, who could easily pass for Arab in both looks and fluency of speech and was generally known as ‘Beni’.

He had been raised in Rahat, an Arab Bedouin city in the Southern District of Israel.

Though selling and repairing bikes in the Middle East, especially mopeds and scooters for cutting around traffic-clogged streets, was a lucrative enterprise, it seemed strange to Bruce that the motorcycle enthusiast would wait until deep into middle age before embarking on setting up a multinational company.

Beni seemed to have begun the process not long after the birth of his granddaughter seven years ago.

Perhaps it had taken him decades to save the money. Maybe expansion was the plan all along, thought Bruce.

However, the Scotsman knew that transforming small businesses—at least those lacking an original concept—into global companies usually had several years in the ‘wilderness’ before an upswing.

Why would a Shabak agent such as Avi Teper be meeting with him? Especially as Beni seemed to be regularly out of the country.

He ran a hand over his face and listened to the stubble beneath his fingers.

Bruce knew he couldn’t stay in Israel much longer—how much of a holiday would they believe him to be taking?

If the point of the endeavour was simply to maintain his relationship with Miles Parker, then he had completed that.

If the point of the endeavour was to help prevent further escalations, then he hadn’t.

He decided he needed a flight out of Israel to London.

However, he needed to risk a phone call first.

Connor smiled as he watched the ginger tabby cat stalk up the section of the steps painted red.

He imagined the feline might be practising for a red carpet event. At the top of the step sat the regal Count’s Quay—a white architectural monument supported by six cylindrical pillars on either side, standing around six men in height.

Viktoria stood next to him, a couple of inches off his height.

Though he thought her attire stylish, he understood that her dress choice also factored in functionality in a ‘fight or flight’ scenario: the loose charcoal cardigan over the black, ribbed top. The stretch denim jeans stopped at the tan leather shoes with shallow block heels.

He guessed that she had tightly wrapped her black hair into a beehive to increase the difficulty of it being grabbed.

When the Englishman began with The Chameleon Project, he promised himself to ‘experience’ the countries he would be sent to. He knew of too many people who, even though their work might lead their feet to touch foreign soil, rarely had time to enjoy the culture.

And so, upon his request for a restaurant recommendation, Leonid provided Viktoria as a tour guide.

The Russian said, “This is the gate to Grafskaya Wharf—we called it Grafskaya Pristan after the commander of the Black Sea Fleet in the late 1700s, Count Voinovich. It was built in 1846 by Colonel Engineer John Upton.”

“Ah yes, John Upton, a civil engineer from Sussex,” said Connor. “The Russians helped him escape England before his fraud trial. They wanted him for their Black Sea expansion project.”

“That is correct,” she said, and Connor noted a hint of surprise.

“See, English criminals arriving here is just a good thing all around.”

He side-eyed her.

Not even a smirk, he thought.

She turned to her left, and he fell in step along the tarmac pathway that eventually led them through a wooded area.

“So, where you taking me?” asked Connor.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I do believe Leonid Honchar, my business associate, your boss, told you to take me out and do whatever I wanted. Now I wanna dance, I wanna win. I want that trophy, so dance good.”

“Sorry—dance?”

“You’ve never seen ‘Pulp Fiction’?”

“What is ‘Pulp Fiction’?”

“Maybe if you watched more great films, you’d smile more.”

“Something all insecure men who fail at getting a woman’s attention say.”

The comment stung Connor, who said, “You have a point there, Viktoria.”

“It is hard to smile when you are to chaperone a man wanted by the FSB.”

Connor said, “Seems like a conflict of interest, him having a Russian to look after him. Whatever your background, I am sure the government trained you. I would guess your allegiance is to the state, not a mobster from Odessa.”

“My allegiance is now to money,” she said. “Do not be troubled—I will have a bad memory when you leave this place. Not that I expect to see you back again.”

Connor, refusing to be rattled, said, “Exactly, and I don’t leave until tomorrow evening, so in light of my imminent death, I am just pleased the restaurant you’ll take me to will be great, what with Russia being known for charm and fine cuisine.”

“What do you like to eat?”

“I can eat almost anything.”

“Almost?”

“Well, I dislike tomatoes on their own, and I’d probably struggle to digest glass, but anything else food-wise.”

“We will see if you speak the truth.”

“I would actually like to enjoy my meal,” he added, regretting that he did not just tell her a favoured dish.

“It will be the same meal I eat.”

“Is this my cue as an insecure male to state that whatever you can eat, I can, too?”

She shrugged. “You do not have to if you do not wish—I might be able to find a fish and chips shop around here.”

Connor looked at her for a second. He could guess what kind of restaurant and meal she wanted to take him to.

And part of him wanted to try it—he believed that experiences, especially bad ones, enriched your existence and made for good stories.

“It’s OK, Viktoria, you lead the way. We’ll eat at whatever restaurant you wish, and I trust you to pick the meal.”

For the first time, he saw a ghost of a smile appear on her.

As they exited the woodland park, they began to skirt the sea.

Connor admired the mid-distance view of Cape Khrustalny, a strange coastal collage of a blue building, curved at one side and straighter at the other with a white stripe at the centre, a white obelisk to its right and a huge, two-figure statue Connor knew to be the “Soldier and Sailor” Memorial to Heroic Defenders of Sevastopol.

“What’s that white obelisk?”

“Obelisk?”

“The thing that looks like a white stone space rocket.”

“It was built to honour Sevastopol as a hero city.”

Connor had read that the city hadn’t long ago been attacked by Ukrainian naval drones—how reliable the source information was, he couldn’t be sure. Jaime had confirmed there had been an attack but couldn’t ascertain the extent of the damage properly.

However, people walked seemingly without anxiety.

They walked on, and Connor noticed himself consciously having to slow down. He remembered first having to do this as a fresh Royal Marine. Basic training involved a lot of Yomps—brisk hikes carrying a load—and weighted speed marches. This ingrained a mental inertia to walk fast.

It eventually receded, but Connor hadn’t long completed a mission involving an arduous hike through the Yukon, so he guessed it must have reignited.

Eventually, they cut more into the city. They came to a water fountain overseen by high trees and surrounded by redwood slatted benches—one of which had the centre bottom section cut away with a kind of disabled badge.

“What’s that meant to be?” he asked.

She looked at him quizzically. “It is so that people in wheelchairs can sit at a bench too.”

Connor guffawed. “You don’t believe that, do you? That’s not pro-disabled. That’s so homeless people don’t sleep there. I am not being funny, it’s not as if people in wheelchairs are thirsting for a place to sit down.”

“Maybe not all people think the same way you do.”

“Maybe they should.”

As she went to walk on, Connor saw her do a double-take at the bench.

On the edge, rental bicycles stood ready within their metallic-poled confines.

Viktoria took out her phone, showed him the app and said, “Download it.”

Connor already had.

Both tapped their screens before scanning to click-release the bikes.

Connor followed her, admiring her ass as she rode at speed past pedestrians, barely having to ring the bell as she went.

Eventually, they reached a beautifully painted dark blue building with raised gold lettering declaring, ‘The Ghosh—Bangladeshi Restaurant’.

He could see a chandelier of flickering gold candles and a glow of patrons.

Connor hadn’t been far off his assumption but thought it would be an Indian restaurant.

He remembered his Uncle Ryan telling him of his preference for Bangladeshi restaurants over Indian.

“Much more flavoured than Indians. I like the use of coconut milk in a lot of the dishes, and there is a huge variety. Some of ‘em are super hot, but that doesn’t seem to be the focus. I believe they are closer to regular Asian dishes, whilst most Indians are made for pissheads over ‘ere.”

His uncle’s perception that ‘super hot’ wasn’t the focus didn’t give him much hope.

They racked the bicycles nearby, and Connor followed her in.

The sounds of conversation, fans, clicking and low-volume Eastern music intertwined with the smells of spices, wine and perfume.

Connor guessed all the staff to be native Bangladeshi.

The host, sporting a well-groomed beard and slicked-back hair, greeted her in English with a huge smile.

He wore green-framed glasses that looked flamboyant without being comical.

“Ah, Miss Viktoria. We haven’t seen you for a while.”

Fuck me, he’s from Birmingham, thought Connor.

“I have been very busy, Ahnaf.”

“It is good to see you back. I have arranged your table.”

She fucking knew exactly what we’d be doing this evening, Connor thought.

The way Ahnaf led them through reminded Connor of the ‘Goodfellas’ scene where Henry takes Karen to the Copacabana nightclub, and they are jumped past the queue and escorted to a table at the front.

Except Connor felt like Karen, as Ahnaf hadn’t even acknowledged him.

He took them up the stairs. The room seemed quieter and a level above the downstairs in décor.

The black cracked design of the white marble bar proved as intriguing as the aquariums full of exotically coloured fish on all sides.

Ahnaf led them to their table—an enclosed balcony made entirely of glass, the transparency of which seemed so clear that Connor hid his apprehension of stepping onto it.

This table afforded them a magnificent panorama of one of the central piers of Sevastopol, and an ornamental pair of large-eyed gold and turquoise fish formed the centrepiece.

On it stood two menus made of wood.

“I will give you time to decide on your drinks,” announced Ahnaf.

When he left, Connor said, “Is this where you tell me that because you’re working, you can’t have a drink?”

“I was told to take you wherever you wanted—I am not your bodyguard. I shall be drinking alcohol—red wine?”

“Not yet for me.”

Before she could answer, he beckoned to Ahnaf.

“I’ll just have an orange juice with my starter.”

“You’re English, eh?” said Ahnaf with incredulity smearing his voice.

“Well, Yorkshire.”

Ahnaf tutted. “You sound like one of those plastic Taffs who say, ‘Am not English, am Scouse, me!’”

Connor laughed. “Nah, I am proud to be British, so I am glad you’re over here and not there.”

Connor knew he’d taken a risk with that one, so it came as a relief to see Ahnaf widen his eyes and throw his head back with laughter.

“I am glad to be here than there—I make four times the money. Unfortunately for me, I like my food.”

Connor gave him a blatant look up and down. “I can see that, Rishi Two-Snacks.”

Ahnaf roared with laughter, pinning his glasses on his nose with a finger before settling and saying, “So, you must be some type of big-time construction tycoon—it’s not as if you’ve gotten this gorgeous lady through your looks.”

“Maybe it’s my dry wit.”

“The only thing that is going to be dry is Vicky ‘ere if you keep ordering orange juice in my restaurant.” He grinned. “Especially as this woman is famous in these parts for how hot a dish she can eat—never seen a Gora eat like it before. Call you Vicky the Cyborg, don’t we?”

Connor glanced at the faint lines appearing on Viktoria’s forehead—he knew she hadn’t seen this side of Ahnaf.

“Well, that’s what the orange juice is for.”

“You not used to spicy food?”

“Not particularly,” said Connor. “But apparently, I have to eat what Viktoria eats.”

“Ha!” bellowed Ahnaf. “Don’t bother. No leg-over is worth that.”

Connor felt confident that though she had a superb grasp of English, the rapidity and patois of the Brummie’s speech might have thwarted her deciphering what he was saying.

“I have to for my honour.”

“Viktoria, at least let him order a starter that’s not gonna make him cry.”

“Absolutely,” she said.

“OK, Viktoria, what starter are you having?”

“The aubergine fritters, please.”

“And you?”

“These Bangladeshi rice crepes, please.”

“Alright, Viktoria, if you’re insistent that Lover Boy is to have what you normally have, then I have to do the cocktail test so that he doesn’t die.”

She nodded her assent.

When Ahnaf floated out of earshot, she looked at Connor and said, “I have come here sometimes twice in a month for two years, and then… pooft, I do not exist.”

“Don’t be sensitive. He was just excited to hear a familiar-sounding voice.”

“I was not being sensitive.”

Ahnaf bounded back, clutching a silver bottle and a cocktail stick.

He stood by the table and said gravely, “You sure about this, bro?”

Connor nodded and asked, “What is it? A Phal or Tindaloo?”

Ahnaf tutted. “We are an authentic Bangladeshi restaurant—the Phal and Tindaloo were invented in Brum back in the seventies for plastered British hot curry junkies. This is our secret recipe. Now stick yer tongue out.”

Connor felt a tinge of nervous excitement.

The dot jabbed his tongue.

He felt a gentle relief at the initial mild burning.

Then, the saliva rushed to cool the torching of the pin prick. He pursed his lips to allow the cold air in to help.

He had an idea then what state he would be in by the end of the meal.

And he knew he would finish. He was reminded of what Sun Tzu stated regarding soldiers who cried before battle—that they did so because running away wasn’t an option to them.

“Well, you haven’t fallen to the floor,” announced Ahnaf. “I guess we are OK then. What meat, unless you’re vegetarian?”

“Lamb, please.”

“Any more drinks?”

Viktoria ordered a bottle of wine with two glasses.

“A vodka and orange to go with that,” said Connor.

He sauntered away, and shortly later, a waiter came with their starters.

Connor asked her, “If his recipe is secret, then how did you know to ask for it?”

“I just asked for the hottest thing on the menu.”

“When did you know you liked spicy food?”

“At first, you might hate something. Then you get used to it. Then you find out you have to like it.”

Something in the way she said it stopped him from probing further.

They ate quietly for a bit until she asked, “What are you thinking about?”

The question came as a surprise, but he answered, “Why the word ‘abbreviation’ is so long.”

He looked up and caught a smirk. Then asked, “You?”

“I was thinking of how some of the more… successful organised crime figures embrace certain aspects of different cultures while remaining… tribal.”

“Being racist is bad for business. It narrows your opportunities,” said Connor. “But being all-accepting is also bad for business. Any organisation’s nucleus must have a sense of identity born of common values.”

“And nations?” she probed.

“And businesses,” he answered.

As if on cue, two waiters came and busied themselves with putting out their meals. Ahnaf stood behind them.

Connor’s eyes began to react to what felt like fumes.

He knew this to be breaking one of his rules that he wouldn’t incapacitate himself whilst on operations.

The black operations agent had broken this rule once in Birmingham, a grappling session having left him exhausted, and he almost paid for it in a subsequent street fight.

Still, he took the risk—he felt it might be smart to show this woman he could endure at least some semblance of suffering.

Ahnaf said, “We’ll close the curtains to give you some privacy.”

Connor replied, “You mean, you don’t want the other customers to see the state of me.”

Ahnaf nodded, wide-eyed. “That is correct, Yorkshire.”

Connor separated a few of the napkins out—he didn’t want to risk wiping his eyes using the same one as his nose and mouth.

He mixed the sauced lamb and lime slices into the rice.

No one has died from eating a curry, he told himself, taking a bite.

Not that bad, he thought, finding that strange given the heat from the cocktail stick jab.

He could taste the lime and coconut and had a sense of the lamb being cooked to perfection.

The heat spread over his tongue like a grass fire on the second bite.

On the third, his eyes began to water.

On the fourth, the sweat pricked at his forehead.

Amazingly, he could still taste the flavours.

His lips became numb.

Mercifully, the hiccups hadn’t arrived, and he prayed they wouldn’t.

He dipped his fingers into the water bowl, dried them with a napkin and then used it to wipe his nose.

After another few mouthfuls, Connor wondered if he could taste blood on his tongue.

He was reminded of the scene in ‘Fight Club’ where ‘the Narrator’ attempted to escape into his mental safe cave as ‘Tyler Durden’ burned his hand with lye.

Fuck me, why does there have to be so much of it? he thought.

He glanced at her for the first time to see her eating without apparent discomfort. She looked at him back but without any evident amusement, just… an assessment.

Even the ceramic fish seemed to stare at him in anticipation.

He imagined the curry hitting his digestive system like a Mongol army to a Chinese city.

The Yorkshireman now didn’t bother to wipe his streaming nose, instead just inhaling the snot back the best he could.

Though he had been told that Phal’s didn’t have much flavour, whatever this was, Connor could still taste ginger, coriander, pepper, coconut and lemon.

A film of sweat covered his head as he took his first sip of vodka and orange.

He could see he still had at least a dozen mouthfuls left, and it began to feel more like an exercise of self-harm.

Pretend Viktoria is holding the Gom Jabbar to your neck, you pussy.

As he ate more, he reminded himself of his definite recovery as his mouth screamed for respite against the scorch.

After bracing himself through the next few bites, he noticed his hand tremble.

Your tongue is evil. Try and destroy it, he thought.

He finished the last few mouthfuls before using the naan bread to mop up.

He looked up to find her finishing hers—with an expression of enjoyment.

Knowing he must have looked like a panting monkey, he thoroughly dipped and washed his fingers. Next, he wiped his forehead against the still-advancing sweat before using another to blow his nose.

His stomach began to contract, though not as badly as anticipated.

“Well done,” she said, leaning back. “Remember, do not touch your eyes until you have been to the bathroom.”

Connor sipped his vodka and orange and allowed his mouth to hang open. He knew that water wouldn’t help.

As if sensing the completion of their meals, the curtains drew back to reveal Ahnaf, larger than life.

“You’ve finished—thought you might have been a pronoun user for a minute there.”

“My only pronouns at the moment are Fuck/Me.”

Ahnaf laughed. “You enjoy it, though?”

“I could taste the flavours even through the suffering,” replied Connor. “I enjoyed it in a way a sub enjoys getting beaten by a dominatrix.”

Ahnaf put on a pair of cartoon eyes and exaggeratingly looked at Viktoria.

The men laughed as she indulged them a smirk.

“Right,” announced Ahnaf. “Ice cream—another one of my special recipes that isn’t just great tasting but will make tomorrow morning more pleasant if you know what I am saying.”

He flicked them both the dessert menu on the ice cream page.

Connor quickly settled on three scoops of cherry vanilla, black raspberry and coffee. Viktoria asked for a watermelon flavoured two scoops.

Ahnaf left with a flourish, and Connor prayed he would hurry up.

He met her eyes, and she said, “Imagine that you are ten years old, and your choice is to eat a meal hotter than that or starve.”

Sensing this might not be the time for jokes, Connor answered, “I would imagine it would make you hate those sorts of people and all they stand for.”

“You would be right,” she said, staring at him. Before he could reply, a waiter appeared with the ice cream.

Connor refrained from putting his face in it and ate it as demurely as Viktoria.

To his amazement, it began to take the edge off almost immediately, and he took his time enjoying the flavours.

When he finished his orange and vodka, she asked him, “Where do you want to go next?”

“Why? You want to leave?”

“Ahem, I thought you wanted to see Sevastopol?”

“It’s a great view. And I am happy to hand Leonid’s money over to Ahnaf.”

“Yes, I agree.”

Ibrahim felt mildly aggrieved to leave his seat halfway through the cinema showing of ‘Monkey Man’.

He made his way out of the fire exit, already knowing that not only was the alarm disabled but the CCTV camera covering the back, too.

He felt disconcerted that nerves feathered his insides as Raz Sharir greeted him, and he knew it was because he had kept the knowledge of the recording copies from his boss, who had given him zero reason not to trust him.

The older man stood beside a black BYD Atto 3 SUV wearing a leather jacket over a thin burnt-red sweater.

Usually, Raz would brief Ibrahim at the Mossad Headquarters in Northern Tel Aviv or a designated safe house, but meeting at one of the handover spots like this wasn’t novel.

When Ibrahim stopped within conversation range, Raz began to speak in a Hebrew and English creole, “Our friend from the UK has identified ‘Meteorite Motorcycles’ as the likely point of contact. As you know, it is owned by Beni Mizrahi. I have done some discreet digging. It seems that a younger Mizrahi had an affair with a lady named Odeya Kertesz, despite them both being married, that lasted several years. Kertesz survived the Burgas bus attack all those years ago, which left her disfigured, unable to walk and without the use of her right hand.”

Ibrahim remembered the Hezbollah suicide bombing in Bulgaria that also killed the driver and five Israeli citizens.

It reminded him of something he had overheard his father once say, “Secular people cannot believe what it is like to have a true Jihadi faith.”

Another recollection occurred to him, and Ibrahim said, “She killed herself a few years later, did she not?”

Raz nodded. “Yes. I assume the affair ceased after the bombing as Mrs Kertesz relied on others for her transport. It seems her death hit Beni hard, took to the bottle, and his business suffered so much that the process of it going into administration had begun… until it was halted suddenly.”

“A mysterious benefactor?”

“I can’t be sure. Obtaining a forensic financial history would require going out of a circle that I am comfortable with.”

“What now?”

“Beni Mizrahi flies to Turkey in two days. I want you in Istanbul by tomorrow morning, Ibrahim,” said Raz, reaching into his jacket and pulling out an envelope. “Passport, clean credit card with a ten thousand New Shekel limit and a ticket to Istanbul.”

“To do what?”

“To set up a surveillance suite in the Meteorite Motorcycles back office over there.”

“By myself?”

“I cannot risk anyone else at this time now that I have scraped a trustworthy team together here on Avi Teper—who is a trained professional. As far as I can tell, Beni is someone’s international messenger—one that can speak English, Hebrew and Arabic.”

“I suppose it is too early to tell who Avi Teper’s puppet master is?”

“It is,” said Raz. “But the audio bugs already picked up something interesting—whether Beni is the messenger or not, the code name seems to be ‘Rephidim’.”

Ibrahim shook his head. “I am not sure what that is.”

Raz said, “It is a battle described in the Torah between the Israelites and the Amalekites. The Israelites had escaped Egypt and were on their way to the Promised Land. Moses placed the army under the leadership of Joshua and watched from a high point. When he held his arms up, the Israelites began to gain the advantage. When he lowered them, they began to lose. Ultimately, his two relatives had to hold his arms aloft, and the Israelites were victorious.”

The two stood in silence for a moment before Ibrahim asked, “Anything else?”

“Not for now.”

“Can our friend help us? Or is his part over now?”

“I believe he is helping us.”

“I will get back to the movie then,” said Ibrahim with a nod as he pocketed the ticket. “I hope I didn’t miss any important plot points.”

28

Bruce entered Miles Parker’s office just after one in the afternoon.

He had barely stopped at the apartment to drop his gear off before receiving a call from Parker himself to stop by the office and report his findings.

As he walked in, his eyebrows raised, and his head craned back a touch on seeing Ann Zurer, wearing a pinstriped suit with a silver Star of David hovering over her bosom.

Miles announced, “I believe you are both acquainted.”

Ann stood. “Yes, we are. Good to see you again, Bruce.”

“You too, Ann,” said Bruce, shaking her proffered hand before they both sat.

Parker said, “Ann will be present for your report, Bruce.”

“Of course,” replied Bruce. “Due to this being an unofficial investigation and its sensitivity, I did not record my findings or produce anything like a presentation.”

Whilst Parker nodded, Ann seemed surprised. “You trust your memory and recall that much?”

“I do, Ann,” he said without offering anything further.

“Can I make notes?” she asked, directing her question at Parker.

The SIS chief smiled. “Of course. Bruce’s professional background has given him an aversion to writing things down. Could you indulge Mrs Zurer that quote of yours?”

Bruce said, “‘If someone needs to consistently make notes—then perhaps they don’t belong in this line of work.’ Our line of work, Ann, not necessarily yours.”

Parker gave a short laugh. “A distinctly more polite version than I’ve heard before.”

She nodded. “Could you start with an overview of how you see it? I will ask for details afterwards if that’s OK?”

Bruce nodded. “To be clear, though thorough and at least three years in planning, I doubt that even HAMAS imagined the extent of their success on Black Saturday.”

Bruce was careful to say ‘their’ rather than ‘the’ and to also use the term commonly used in Israel for the October seventh attacks.

“What makes you say that?” she asked.

“I believe that there was, or even is, an overreliance on technology at the border—billions have been spent on the Iron Wall.”

She nodded. “We believe Gaza is one of the most surveillance-heavy places on Earth with human and electronic assets. If a mouse farts, the security forces were meant to know about it.”

Bruce smiled and said, “The Iron Wall’s foundations were so corroded that it allowed for easier access under the bulldozers that HAMAS used to breach it. They can’t have known that ahead of time because surely the Israelis didn’t know, even if you believe that HAMAS has access to a high-level insider.”

Ann looked over her glasses. “You don’t think that is a possibility?”

“We don’t discount anything, but I haven’t seen any evidence.”

“I understand.”

Bruce said, “Despite what the media depicts, I believe that Israel puts more emphasis on the West Bank due to its religious significance. To that end, many of the IDF were reassigned there due to the mass left-wing protests—it left the border to Gaza vulnerable.”

She asked, “Is there any way this could have been orchestrated? Maybe sleeper agents provoking the people to protest during this particular time?”

“I didn’t have the resources to ascertain this, Ann. That would involve questioning and seizing the protesters’ computers for investigation. It is possible, however.”

“You said ‘at least three years in the planning’—why?”

“Because it was three years ago that HAMAS ceased launching attacks, despite Islamic Jihad continuing to do so. I believe this was to lull the Israeli top brass into believing they cared more for money than their covenant. They compounded this belief by confirming as much with phone calls that they must have known were getting listened in on by the Israeli Security Services. The efficacy of their tactics was proved by the number of work visas allocated to Gazans in recent times.”

Ann sniffed. “Between you, I and Miles here, the government had been given ample warnings not to do that. It states in HAMAS’s covenant that ‘Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.’ Apologies, I shouldn’t indulge my misgivings—continue.”

“I sympathise with Israel’s Security Services situation. They have to contend with several potential hostile zones—Gaza, the West Bank, Hezbollah in Lebanon and potential uprisings in the mixed cities, amongst many. It must be difficult to continually process the credible intelligence from the unreliable.”

“But there were warnings?”

He nodded. “The Egyptians sent a warning that ‘something big is coming’. Also, Aman sent a warning to the IDF just before the attack began. They either didn’t receive it or chose to ignore it.”

“Interesting.”

Bruce decided to throw her a bone with, “What is interesting is that all the senior IDF NCOs were situated at one base. When HAMAS stormed the base, they effectively decapitated their leadership.”

“Is there anything in your investigations that supports the notion of a false flag? Or even that a blind eye was turned?”

Bruce didn’t reveal his surprise at the brazenness of her question. “Nothing substantial. I understand the premise—gives the government an excuse to properly… suppress HAMAS—and Israel’s left-wing population—thoroughly.”

“What’s your summary?”

“An Israeli underestimating of the imagination and resources of their enemy.”

Ann nodded and asked, “Bruce, on your travels, did you come across the idea that there might have been a single individual directing the various trains?”             

“Stands to reason there might be a main driver. That said, I should imagine it to be very difficult for one man to run everything.”

“Imad Mughniyeh did it.”

“Yes,” admitted Bruce. “I believe the Iranians did not wish for an individual like that to arise again. A classic ‘all your eggs in one basket’ scenario.”

She looked at him, and Bruce sensed she wanted to say something.

When she didn’t, Parker asked her, “Is there anything else you wanted clarification on?”

Another moment, and she answered, “No.”

“I’ll see you to the door, Ann. I need to have a discussion with Bruce.”

“I understand.”

They all stood.

Bruce and Ann shook hands before she departed the room.

Parker returned to his chair.

The two men looked at one another, and Parker said, “She’s astute, Bruce.”

“I know.”

“Have you finished your investigation?”

Bruce knew that Parker shared his discomfort in sharing information he didn’t need to share or sharing information prematurely.

Instead of answering him directly, Bruce asked, “How long can you delay my position as head of Section D?”

Parker leant back almost imperceptibly. “Christ, Bruce.”

“How long?”

Parker’s chest rose and fell. “Two weeks?”

“Can you stretch it to three?”

“I am not sure what you’re trying to achieve—nothing will stop these violent ‘flare-ups’, at least not in our lifetime.”

“Some would say that is a pessimistic way of looking at it, Miles.”

“And some would say realistic. The current Israeli Government and HAMAS love one another, Bruce. They allow one another to look forthright or even heroic in the eyes of their respective peoples. The Israelis don’t fear HAMAS, per se—they fear a nuclear Iran, thus far contained.”

“As does the USA and every Sunni Muslim country in the Middle East.”

“The Iranians’ claim of desiring nuclear weapons has merit—the Persians are not only surrounded by powers with them, the Russians to the north, Pakistan to their east, the Americans in the Gulf and Israel to the west, but also unfriendly Sunni nations. And Israel is scared that if the Democrats win the next US election, they will attempt to appease the Iranians. And rumours have been reported.”

“Such as?”

“That the Iranian Darkhovin nuclear power plant conceals weapons—nothing substantiated as yet,” said Parker before taking a deep breath. “And that the Ayatollah has stated they are to be fired if even one Israeli soldier’s boot lands on Iran’s soil.”

Bruce looked at him and asked, “Have I ever displayed to you any melodrama?”

“Never,” came the immediate reply.

“I believe what is potentially coming could see millions die in a very short space of time.”

Parker met his eyes and said, “Take as long as you need, Bruce.”

The one codenamed Rephidim pressed the button, activating the downward motion of the roller shutter doors as the tall figure trundled in on the Benelli 502C Cruiser.

Rephidim’s eyes flicked around this Istanbul motorcycle workshop’s near-empty car park but didn’t see anything untoward.

He then leant back on the tool counter as the tall figure removed his helmet to reveal himself as Moshen Khalimov—a man known by two monikers; the lesser of the two, known within ISIS circles, as the Leopard of Palmyra due to his actions in not only capturing the ancient city in May 2015 but also retaking it in late 2016.

The other known throughout the Middle East—Alkhalid—The Immortal.

Rephidim knew he had done well not only in cultivating the deep-cover Quds officer but also in hiding his nerves while doing so.

And it had occurred to him in the beginning that Alkhalid could have been playing him—however, as time went on, it became more evident that Khalimov followed his instructions.

“As-salamu alaykum,” greeted Khalimov.

“Wa ʿalaykumu s-salām,” answered Rephidim.

The two men spoke in their shared tongue of Arabic.

Rephidim asked, “How have your recruiting efforts gone?”

“I have acquired men who are trustworthy and professionally competent.”

“Good,” Rephidim said. “You and your men are to receive a shipment arriving in two days—it will contain all the weapon systems, vehicles and supplies you requested.”

Khalimov grunted, “All of them?”

“Some of the weapons have been substituted for ones more easily obtainable in Ukraine,” he said. “But there are the three reconditioned KamAZ-43114 trucks you asked for. Everything will be stored in a disused mechanic’s garage just outside a Georgian town named Gori.”

“Good.”

“You will need something more… advanced for this mission. I cannot procure it, but I can give you the details for you to obtain it yourselves.”

“What is it?”

“A man-portable version of the Starstreak, with plenty of missiles.”

He referred to the British short-range surface-to-air missile that was reputed to be the fastest in existence.

“How?”

“Three were captured from the Ukrainians during advances in Toretsk. This particular one is to be sent back for reverse engineering.”

“Where?”

“It will travel with other captured weapons over the Black Sea in a grain cargo ship under armed guard. The grain’s destination is Sochi, but the weapon systems will be dropped first at a makeshift port in the small town of Uch-Dere, just to the north.”

“Who constitutes the armed guard?”

“Approximately twenty Russian infantrymen from the 9th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade. They are returning to the front having been issued six weeks of stand-down.”

Khalimov said, “Now the matter of entering Russia unchallenged.”

“I have a methodology for that.”

Khalimov nodded, saying, “I am honoured that I have been entrusted with this.”

“You were the only choice, Khalimov,” said Rephidim.

“The Big Satan needs Little Satan in our lands.”

“Precisely.” Rephidim smiled. “This will be the beginning of the global war that will see Islam rule the world—and who knows, maybe the Mahdi will appear.”

Connor finished his icy shower by detaching the showerhead, constricting it down to the triple-jet setting, parting his cheeks with one hand and cold blasting his arsehole.

He had ensured his bowels were empty before getting under the hotel’s spray. As he stood feeling the throbbing soothe, he thought of the shower scene in the film ‘American History X’.

He got out, dried and dressed.

Now that it looked like he had secured transport, he called Ciara, as per their agreement.

The room might have been bugged, but it wasn’t likely, as this wasn’t the original room Leonid had booked under his name.

When Viktoria helped him check in, Connor deliberately sabotaged the showerhead and insisted to the hotel reception that they change his room.

And to his surprise, it had been granted without delay.

He didn’t discount the possibility that Leonid might own the entire hotel and had all the rooms bugged—but with the mobster boss already knowing Connor to be an agent sort of some kind, the Englishman surmised this might be the last time in a while he would be physically alone.

With London being two hours behind Crimea, Connor called the specific number that went through Jaime’s switchboard.

Connor felt a strange sense of comfort when Ciara answered:

“You alright?”

They went through the various challenges and responses that would seem like standard greetings to civilian ears.

They actually communicated that, though neither was under duress, only Ciara could be confident they were not being listened in on.

Due to his voice being exposed to the room, Connor spoke in as much code as he could, giving Ciara a rundown of how he had managed to reach Crimea and Leonid’s agreement to help.

“Are you aware of the Caucasus Emirate?”

“Yeah, but the band broke up almost a decade ago. Its members joining other bands.”

The Caucasus Emirate was a Jihadist group first active in the rebel-held areas of Syria and the North Caucasus. Chechen warlord Dokka Umarov announced the creation of the Caucasus Emirate—also known as the Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus—and himself as its first ‘Emir’.

By 2015, the Russian Security Forces had increasing success in their attacks on the Caucasus Emirate commanders as well as its infrastructure; this, compounded with the exodus of many of its fighters to other conflict zones, contributed to its seeming disappearance.

“It’s true that most of its members had defected to Vilayat Kavkaz. However, there are rumours that a few of its better and more ardent fighters have splintered to reform the Caucasus Emirate funded by Saudi money. With the Russians occupied by this war, they see it as a perfect time to strike.”

“And you think these are the people who will be tasked with intercepting the package?”

“It’s not a certainty. But our best guess.”

When Ciara had said, “…a few of its better and most ardent fighters…” he knew they would be the returning Russian Muslims hardened by years of war in Syria.

“Do I have a travel agent?” asked Connor, using the euphemism for a contact agent once he arrived in Georgia.

“Check your email drafts. All the information is there.”

Connor said, “If and when I come back from this tour, I could do with a holiday.”

“I agree,” said Ciara. “If that is what you want.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” he asked.

“Figure of speech,” she replied.

They signed off.

Connor pondered what Ciara had meant. Then he realised she might have been insinuating that he might prefer this existence to the normality of life.

Connor hoped that wasn’t the case. He had read that the members of the great seventies rock group ‘Led Zeppelin’ could be as wild and excessive as any band, with tales of motorcycle riding in hotel lobbies amongst the usual drink, drugs and sex stories.

However, Connor had read that when not on tour, the band members lived relatively normal family lives, with Page and Plant often retiring to a quiet Welsh country cottage to write many of their tracks.

Connor didn’t even have the luxury to retire to a quiet setting. There was always danger with a family like his, with the quiet periods being more like lulls in the action.

When he got back, he could take Grace and Jackson for a cruise.

Perhaps—Stop it, he told himself. Concentrate on the task at hand or else you might never make it back.

He opened the laptop he had procured and directed himself to the secure email, where he found the work-up package attached to a draft message—this was one of the standard security protocols that prevented Jaime from having to ‘send’ information across cyberspace.

He decided to intersperse the absorption of the information with a bodyweight strength routine.

First, he performed a set of pistol squats followed by door pull-ups by placing a rolled towel across the top of the door while reading and testing his knowledge of the work-up package between sets.

Next, he contracted his core tightly to bang out several handstand press-ups.

Connor had never been seduced by bodybuilding as, to his mind, the exhaustive effort of triggering maximal hypertrophy took away from his fighting performance training.

He also wanted to be stronger than he looked rather than the other way around.

Connor had often prevailed easily in ground grappling or wrestling, hulking physiques, yet had endured titanic battles with lighter men who didn’t look imposing, especially not in clothes.

He performed his strength training with low reps and long rests between sets to increase his contractile fibres and better train his nervous system.

Connor’s methodology of studying was a derivative of the 7-3-2-1 method—studies had shown that for information to be transitioned from short-term memory to the long-term, it had to be seen five to seven times.

He recalled it an hour after, twenty-four hours after, two days, three days, a week, a month and finally six months after.

Connor had studied the geography and history of the North Caucasus region and thus had a scaffolding of knowledge.

However, Ciara telling him of the possible revitalisation of the Caucasus Emirate with Saudi money had been a revelation to him—though not a shock.

He began to perform his stretches—holding the positions, then tensing the stretched muscles before relaxing and pushing the range again.

Connor made a final check of the large army-green daysack and its contents Roza’s people had supplied him.

He had been grateful that every item he had requested had been obtained—especially the quilt-lined olive winter jacket.

Satisfied, he began to read his novel.

After nearly another hour, his phone beeped.

He frowned at the message and then replied.

A few minutes later, a knock sounded on the door.

As a combat protocol, he opened it with a straight arm on the side of the handle. Most potential shooters would assume their target to be directly behind the door as the handle or knob began to move.

However, the opening only revealed Viktoria clad in a fur-hooded, cream, knee-length coat that looked a little too warm for the time of year.

A small suitcase hung from her right hand.

She stepped inside and past him without invite.

“When you board the boat, you will give this case to the one who identifies himself as Nikolai. You will be taken to Poti in a day. Nikolai knows the code for the case—if he asks, there is a problem.”

“I thought I was to meet you downstairs in an hour?”

She placed the case down and her fingers against his chest. “Are you homosexual?”

Her delivery indicated it to be a genuine question.

“No.”

“Loyal to a woman back home?”

Despite himself, Connor answered, “Not exactly.”

“You do not find me attractive?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then why did you not invite me back to your room last night?”

Connor looked at her for a moment. “For one, I didn’t think it would be pleasant for you to listen to any noises I might have made behind a locked bathroom door. But the main reason was that I didn’t think you’d be receptive to an invite.”

“Are you to go into the bathroom again soon?”

“No, I am OK.”

“Good,” she said before unbuttoning her jacket and letting it fall.

The cream off-the-shoulder all-in-one finished mid-thigh.

She turned to reveal the zip.

“Take it off, and then use me as you wish.”

29

Khalimov could hear the quiet chatter and the smell of cheap cigarettes as he stalked along the side of the huge white-bricked garage in Gori.

After identifying a stretch of desolate meadowland, the former ISIS commander had pushed through the dense forest to get here.

Perfect for zeroing weapon systems.

When he appeared to them, the talking immediately ceased.

Four of the thirteen had been in the same Inghimasi as him during the war.

This type of unit infiltrated the enemy to cause maximum death and destruction.

And if you were Inghimasi, then you wore an explosive vest or belt to have the option of martyring yourself and taking the enemy with you.

The word ‘Inghimasi’ translated to ‘become immersed’—and he would ensure that this current unit would be all Inghimashi and wear suicide vests for the next mission.

Jamal al-Sheikh had called Khalimov to discuss the men he had recruited.

Only Jamal and Imran al-Masry, a good soldier, hailed from Syria.

The homelands of the rest consisted mainly of Dagestan but also the Republics of Adygea and Ingushetia.

Khalimov addressed them in Russian, and his low voice seemed to soar in the quiet, “If any of you doubt that I am the ‘Leopard of Palmyra’, you should look to the men who know my face.”

He observed the subtle shifting of heads.

“The Russians are oppressing you—we all know that. But your attacks—though admirable and brave—are merely irritating to them. You need something bigger to gain your freedom.”

The short but stocky Karim Shamil, a transplanted Tajik with a fearsome reputation, said, with a mere hint of derision, “What is the big plan?”

“You have all been ordered to go dark from Shahab al-Muhajir,” began Khalimov, referring to the Emir of the Islamic State’s Khorasan Province. “My mission orders are from the high council and the Caliph himself and thus supersede your commanders here. However, such is the magnitude of this mission, I have no wish to drag those who are not fully committed to our global Jihad—because, make no mistake, some of us will be martyred. If you have any reservations, turn around and disappear this meeting from your mind.”

He watched them carefully, but none flinched.

“Good,” he said before turning to the garage doors and releasing the various locks.

He pulled open the doors to reveal a mighty armament of weapon systems, equipment that he had previously set into rows on sheets of linen.

AK-133s made up the bulk of the assault rifles—used by both the Russian and Iranian militaries.

Not one but two huge Snipex Alligator rifles lay supported by their bi-pods like a pair of lions poised to attack.

The Alligators were anti-material rifles designed for use against military equipment, structures and other hardware (materiel) targets.

At the back stood three reconditioned KamAZ-43114s.

The men took on a collective look of awe.

“Come,” Khalimov said. “The weapons and equipment have been chosen for your particular skill sets.”

Once every man stood behind his assigned kit and weapons, Khalimov said, “We will now cut through the forest to a meadow I have located so that we can zero the weapon systems.”

“Can you tell us where we are going, Qayid?” asked Nadr Melikov, one of the most talented snipers he knew by Jamal’s reckoning.

Nadr used the Arabic word for ‘leader’ to address Khalimov.

“The Georgian coast,” said Khalimov. “To obtain a weapon much more devastating than what we have here.”

Connor walked the pier, asking himself the question, What the fuck are you doing?

He felt it akin to walking the plank.

The merchant ship’s hull had a paint ratio of around seventy to thirty, with the green sitting on top of the orange.

The beige STS (Ship to Shore) cranes stood at either side of the vessel with the white bridge at the back.

Viktoria handed him an ID card and told him to board and not say anything to anyone until a man named Nikolai had introduced himself.

The smell of salt water and oil permeated the air.

He approached the grated walkway and peered up at the supposed sentry posted on board.

The guard tilted his head in consent before craning it over his shoulder to bellow, “Nikolai.”

Connor walked up, thinking that if he were to be arrested, then surely the time would be now.

Tawny-winged, dirty, white-headed Siberian gulls perched from the railings like men from a nightclub balcony, drilling him with their thirsty black eyes.

Reaching the top, a man resembling an upright gorilla approached.

He wore a black, ribbed tank top outlining his nipples with an ear stud star glinting proudly from the left lobe. To Connor’s mind, the look would have been more appropriate in a gay nightclub than on a merchant vessel, despite what ‘they’ said about sailors.

The man with slabs for pectorals towered over Connor a handful of inches. “You are the English, yes?”

For fuck’s sake, thought Connor, but answered, “Yes.”

“I am Nikolai.”

“Then this belongs to you,” said Connor, handing him the suitcase.

“You to follow me.”

The bull-necked Russian had a full head of black and grey patches, and Connor thought he smelt of Brut aftershave.

Connor took in the other sailors whilst avoiding eye contact with any of them.

They wore some semblance of uniform in their collared navy blue shirts with emblems.

However, he could sense the embers of resentment in their surreptitious glances towards him as he walked across the bridge.

Nikolai said, “You will stay in your room. I will bring you your meals.”

How he pluralised the word ‘meals’ caused Connor to ask, “How long will the journey last?”

Nikolai rubbed his rough stubble and held up three thick and gnarled fingers.

“I don’t understand,” said Connor. “Even this rusty, soviet shit… I mean ship… can pull twenty knots. It shouldn’t take three fucking days.”

Nikolai shrugged. “I am smuggler. Not captain.”

Connor stopped walking, causing Nikolai to do likewise.

“Our mutual friend expects me to be there tomorrow. He isn’t going to be pleased when I rock up two days late.”

Nikolai laughed. “You can always swim back.”

The cunt knew it was going to be a three-day turnaround and doesn’t want to spend the money Leonid gave him to convince the captain otherwise.

“No. You’ll take whatever it takes out of that suitcase to convince the captain to revise the route so he drops me first.”

Nikolai snorted as he reached out to grasp Connor by the upper arm.

The first two knuckles of the Englishman’s right fist catapulted through the Desperate Dan-like jaw.

And then Connor’s mouth involuntarily fell open like a spring-loaded cash register.

Connor had been throwing punches for nearly a quarter of a century now. First, as a child, on his grandfather’s palms with the old man exhorting him to “…imagine the target is six inches behind the surface. Stop telegraphing—throw them straight from your chin.”

Then, almost reluctantly at first, his father taught him the correct punching mechanics of using his body—specifically, the whip of the hips, projecting the shoulder and turning the fist over.

Next, he joined the Reaper Boxing Club before his twelfth birthday. He had had sixty-six amateur boxing wins in seventy-one bouts spread over his time as a civilian and in the Marines, where he had won the Combined Services Open class light-middle weight championship for the Navy.

Though not quite possessing the ‘Touch of Death’ his father reputedly had, Connor punched with such intensity that he had at least expected to hurt the smuggler severely.

Especially as the shot would not have been expected and thus not braced against.

Indeed, he had caught Nikolai bang on the point of the jaw with his full weight and projection.

But the bear-like man straightened, seemingly unhurt, and had not even dropped the case.

Connor clamped his mouth shut. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he must have been issued his jaw from the same factory as Gennady Golovkin’s.

A roar went up from the sailors as they rushed the scene, barking at Nikolai but not touching him.

Nikolai’s eyes bored into Connor’s, who stuck a mask of serene confidence on.

However, the black operations agent knew Nikolai must have seen his expression in the immediate aftermath.

Connor decided not to speak with all the commotion.

The Hulk placed two fingers inside his mouth before inspecting them and smiling.

Nikolai shouted, ‘Tikhiy!’

Silence befell the sailors.

Nikolai nodded to Connor. “We fight now.”

Connor hid the feeling of the adrenaline ping-ponging around his insides with, “So you can have me thrown overboard if I win?”

The smuggler laughed. “If you win, I will tell the captain to place you the morning next to today.”

“And what if you win?”

Connor watched Nikolai make a show of scanning his eyes over the sailors. “You beat a dog to make others pull the wood chair.”

“The sled… to get the dogs to pull the sled. And the morning next to today is tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you for lesson.”

“I haven’t given it to you yet.” Connor smiled with a confidence he didn’t feel.

Bruce knew he had approximately twenty minutes until Adriana returned from a hair appointment.

Having already checked his apartment for bugs, he fired up the laptop.

After two minutes, a pixelated image dissolved to show Raz Sharir’s face in crystal clarity.

The two men went through their anti-duress protocols, and Raz said, “Your detective work has paid off. Beni gave instructions to an unknown in his Istanbul workshop. He is the codename Rephidim.”

“Instructions to do what?”

“To steal a shoulder-launched Starstreak missile system captured from the Ukrainians. It is to be captured when it lands in Uch-Dere, just north of Sochi. To do what exactly, I am unsure, but Beni said, and I quote verbatim, ‘This will be the beginning of the global war that will see Islam rule the world—and who knows, maybe the Mahdi will appear.’ Are you aware of the Mahdi?”

“Of course,” said Bruce. “Al-Mahdi will return by the decree of Allah to lead the forces of the righteous against those of evil in an apocalyptic war to establish peace and justice on Earth.”

“We can warn the Russian authorities now.”

Bruce stared back. “Which authorities? There is no way this is being orchestrated without the assistance of at least one high-level figure in the Kremlin.”

“Then we need to do this ourselves,” said Raz.

“Agreed,” said Bruce. “Can Ibrahim meet my guy?”

“He’s already inbound, as discussed.”

“Good,” said Bruce. “Beni Mizrahi needs to be intercepted before he returns to Israel for questioning. And who knows how long it could take to break him.”

“I can provide support, but I can’t guarantee this Rephidim has not been thoroughly briefed on my men—if his handler is Mossad. An outsider might be useful as a first point of contact.”

Bruce mulled this over for only a moment. “I might know someone.”

30

Connor could smell the salt of the seawater and the mocking squawks of the gulls above the excited chatter and shouts of the circle of sailors surrounding him.

Connor had no doubts that the bets exchanged would be on how long he would last, not on who the winner would be.

And he didn’t blame them—he guessed that Nikolai, much taller and broader, might have had up to twenty-five kilos on him.

And though the smuggler—now facing him, stripped to the waist on the other side of the circle—had a higher fat percentage than Connor, he wasn’t what the Englishman would describe as fat—’barrelly’, maybe, but not fat.

And the Russian’s face didn’t display either fear or arrogance, just a Fedor Emelianenko-like vacancy of expression.

Connor had fought in all sorts of environments, from rings and cages to bars and car parks, but on a ship’s deck surrounded by Russian sailors would be a first. Though the sea didn’t seem to be choppy, he could still feel the movement beneath his feet.

What concerned Connor the most was how well Nikolai had taken his best punch, and his stomach seemed to have the density of a medicine ball.

And though the smaller, and so in theory, quicker man—Connor didn’t have the confidence in his punch-avoiding reflexes he would have even a few years back.

Now thirty, he had hardly engaged in striking sparring in the last few years to save his mental sharpness.

The nail in the coffin had been a study he had read a few years ago. It reported that MMA combatants five years into their careers did not generally show much brain damage. However, ten-year veterans showed significant damage, and Connor had decided not to increase his head trauma debt.

That said, while not on operations, Connor religiously hit the heavy bag with kicks, punches and head-butts to keep his striking force strong. He had also adopted punching it with completely bare fists—not even wraps—to strengthen the wrists and callous the knuckles.

He had soon discovered why the old-school bare-knuckle matches would be slower than their modern, gloved successor—inaccurate blows landing on the top of the skull or rib-protecting elbows could mangle the hands if not at least wrapped.

Connor didn’t fancy taking any punch Nikolai could deliver anywhere on his anatomy, but given that a quick knockout looked impossible, he knew he would have to get wet.

A tall, stoic-faced man with a full head of mousy brown and grey hair parted the crowd, which hushed without his speaking.

Despite the lack of insignia on his blue tunic, Connor instinctively knew this to be the captain.

First, he spoke to Nikolai for a good few moments before turning to Connor and saying in adroit English, “Nikolai says that if you agree, there will be no biting, thumb in eyes, fingers in mouth or hits to balls. Do you agree?”

Connor nodded his consent to his opponent’s rules despite not being sure what the penalty for breaking them would be.

The Englishman asked, “Did he tell you the stakes?”

“The stakes?”

“The prize we are fighting for?”

The captain raised his eyebrows and nodded. “That we’d reverse our journey to depart you first?”

“Yes.”

The captain nodded. “OK.”

He then made an announcement to the sailors, who laughed uproariously. Connor guessed this to be a statement regarding his own apparent misplaced confidence.

Connor began a cycle of sharp double inhalations through his nose before slowly releasing his breath to calm his adrenaline from a torrid river to a steady stream.

He removed his thick, black, knitted jumper with the same-coloured T-shirt beneath before turning around to place it somewhere.

One of the sailors with a kind face stretched his arm out to take it. Having little choice, Connor gave it to him, being pleasantly surprised to see him folding and rolling it with a maid’s care before placing it beneath his arm.

Even through his body’s fear response, it occurred to him that the crowd didn’t hate him but simply looked forward to watching a fight—even if they did anticipate his destruction.

The captain—now quasi-referee—ushered them to the centre. Connor looked down, firstly to elicit the impression of being terrified now the moment of truth had arrived. Secondly, to check the decking for anything that might snag his footing.

Connor then looked at his opponent’s hands and observed the right hand twitching—an indicator that it might be his favoured power-punching hand, though Connor knew it would behove him not to take it as guaranteed.

Though the fingers looked gnarled, the knuckles didn’t look particularly bulbous. Connor’s father had educated him as a teen on what possible visual signs could hint at a man’s fighting prowess:

“Very difficult to tell—a sharp jawline shows a lack of excess fat. Scars on bulbous knuckles probably mean he’s smacked a few heads—though some of those karate guys have them from breaking those boards. It’s rare that soft men have cauliflower ears—even if you’ve got ‘em from playing rugby. Rugby players are generally harder than the average man cos it’s a full-contact game. Gnarled fingers and vascular wrists might mean hard manual graft. On big lads, look at the size of their hands—if they are big, that means the guy is naturally big, and that’s a fuckin’ problem. If they are small, it means the guy ‘as weight trained him’sen bigger.”

Connor had asked at the time, “What difference would that make? If they are big, then they are big?”

To which his dad had replied, “It’s not the same. A guy born big ‘as the heart, lungs and bone structure to support the weight properly. They are more able to move their weight through space. A bodybuilder, even one on steds, won’t feel as strong and will gas quicker.”

The Russian’s hands did indeed seem to match his weight.

The captain wrapped up his summary of the rules with, “Fight is over when one man sleeps or taps his hand to surrender. Understand?”

Both combatants nodded, and the captain ushered them back to the roars of the sailors.

Connor began the match the same way he started most of his match fights—sprinting to the ‘centre’ and performing a simultaneous duck with a step around to the right.

The duck prevented the landing of any straights or hooks to the head, and the step around would mean escape from uppercuts and stuffing hooking blows to the body.

Not bombproof, but it had served him well thus far and did again now with Nikolai’s overarching right hand sailing by him.

The Russian spun to face Connor before the Englishman could snatch a leg for a takedown.

Connor leashed the urge to go for the head with a ‘power’ shot, and instead, he jabbed it before cannoning in a right hand to the solar plexus.

Fuckin’ medicine ball, Connor thought.

He stepped back to observe the Russian’s weird fighting stance. His feet looked fairly square, his back upright, and his hands by his face with the palms facing out.

Connor initially thought he resembled a grizzly bear on its hind legs.

An image intruded of the Meat Loaf character Robert Paulson squaring off in ‘Fight Club’.

Nikolai stepped towards him like some kind of unflinching Terminator as Connor danced around him, snapping jabs to the face to axe harder punches into the sides.

The jabs constituted a boxing tactic designed to raise the opponent’s guard to create openings for the body shots.

Except, Nikolai didn’t make an attempt to protect his face, a face seemingly made of leather judging by the complete lack of marks being left.

Connor detected squints as his body shots landed and the creeping of the elbows to protect them.

However, Nikolai’s long side steps had the effect of depriving Connor of the space to move.

Rough palms began to shunt him off the edge of the human circle.

Connor ducked Nikolai’s wide left hook-slap and slid around him.

He pleaded in his mind, These fuckin’ body shots better start having an effect soon.

The former amateur boxer, despite having hit his opponent several times and not been hit himself, started to become aware of the difference in his energy debt in comparison to the larger, stronger man.

Though still possessing extreme fitness, the Englishman knew he couldn’t keep simply dancing and throwing hard punches if they failed to produce an effect.

While he had wanted to win without the Russian unduly touching him, he now decided to change tack.

Due to the size of the smuggler’s thighs, Connor decided on a single-leg over a double-leg takedown.

He jabbed the stomach before leaping a howitzer of a right hand clean into the seemingly steel skulled head.

The blow, which would have robbed the average man of similar size of his consciousness, merely shunted Nikolai back a step.

Connor snatched the muscle-hard left thigh and lifted it.

The leg rotated with his grip, and he felt steel fingers clamp inside his right armpit.

The Englishman found himself spinning through the air.

Realising he had been caught in an Uchi-mata—inner-thigh reaping throw—Connor tucked his chin and released his hands to smack the deck hard with his left arm in some semblance of a stinging break-fall.

Despite landing with cracking force, he managed to avoid the full drive-through of Nikolai’s body weight.

He realised now that Nikolai was well-versed in judo, and the ground seemed to be exactly where Nikolai wanted him.

Before the Russian could fully synch up a hydraulic Kesa Gatame—scarf hold—Connor spun like an alligator to shoot his arm across Nikolai’s back.

Connor began to torque himself off his back despite the crushing pressure of the Russian’s shoulder on his face.

No sooner had his knees touched the deck than Nikolai’s mallet-like knuckles collided with his rapidly turned cheek.

Connor scooped the arm of the retracting fist and violently drove himself into the bigger man before he could use it to post on the deck for balance.

Now on top of the Russian, the Englishman drove punches into the slab-like face to the crowd’s roars.

Turn yer cunt, please turn, roared Connor in his head.

It came first with Nikolai’s colossal wrestler bridge, which would have sent Connor flying had he not anticipated it and pushed himself up with it.

Connor landed back on Nikolai’s upturned side and skidded his knee beneath the lower back before wedging himself onto his opponent’s back.

With Nikolai being too thick in the waist, Connor could not clamp into position with a body lock triangle. Instead, he used his feet placed on the hips and inside of the thighs as mobile hooks to prevent the brute’s escape.

Connor began the fatiguing process of fighting the hands protecting the chin-guarded throat.

Nikolai, one of his hands already gripped by Connor’s, snatched the other hand knifing towards his Adam’s apple, forcing it down.

This allowed the Englishman’s heel to come up and over to trap Nikolai’s defending arm.

Connor used his now free hand to saw his fingers under the jaw.

Eventually, with a sweat-stained gap created, the Yorkshireman folded his fingers into knuckles and forced them the rest of the way through.

His other hand let go of Nikolai’s wrist to bolt a garrotte around the back of the head to tighten the choke.

The circle of men hushed tighter around the grappling pair.

Connor felt Nikolai’s spirit and realised the smuggler would not tap his surrender.

The coughing and spluttering sounded, followed by a gurgle.

Relief washed over Connor as the Titan slumped into motionless.

Connor kept the choke on a few seconds longer to guard against possum-playing.

He released it and rolled Nikolai with him onto his side before manipulating him through fatigue-treacle into the recovery position.

Nikolai mercifully gasped for oxygen, and the crowd roared—seemingly for the spectacle they had just witnessed now that their crewman would be OK.

Connor stood, disguising his weariness. The crowd didn’t seem to bear any animosity, but he remained as guarded as he would around a ‘dangerous dog’ breed he didn’t know.

They prised the big Russian into a sitting position.

One of the sailors appeared to Connor’s eyes to explain to Nikolai what had happened. When the smuggler said something, the sailor pointed at Connor.

Nikolai’s head whipped around, and his eyes took in Connor.

Then, for the first time, his face split into a wide, toothy grin.

He struggled to his feet and approached.

The Russian opened his arms wide, wrapping them around Connor like a blanket.

“You crazy English. You good fighter bastard.”

Connor awkwardly returned the embrace, still cautious of Nikolai suddenly clinching him for a throw.

However, the Russian broke the embrace and declared, “We eat, we get drunk.”

“I have to be sharp for tomorrow.”

The captain laughed, shouting something out, and the sailors laughed, too.

The captain said to him, “That is tomorrow. This is today. You have drink with us.”

“Who’s going to sail the ship if you’re all drunk?”

The captain said, “The young ones. And I have been drunk much of my boat time.”

Connor didn’t think that getting fucked up with Russian sailors the day before embarking on another perilous mission would be wise.

However, he didn’t want to pierce the apparent bubble of goodwill towards him.

“Can we at least eat first? Give me a fighting chance?”

The captain smiled. “Yes, of course.”

Moshen Khalimov, dressed in the fatigues of a Russian soldier, lay on the moss-covered gravel.

He adjusted the centre focus wheel on the Steiner military binoculars to clarify the scene below.

The rangefinder had indicated a distance of ‘417M’ from the port.

He magnified the ship’s speck on the sea’s horizon—4633M.

The cold air bit into the back of his neck, but Khalimov didn’t mind.

He hadn’t minded for around eighteen years.

And it had been around that length of time he had known the man lying next to him, holding the huge Snipex Alligator.

Jamal al-Sheikh said, “Is that it?” despite his optics being just as powerful.

Khalimov waited a while before confirming, “Yes.”

Though both men spoke in Arabic, Khalimov used the more standardised version, whilst al-Sheikhin the Levantine Arabic, more readily spoken in his home country of Syria.

Both Khalimov and al-Sheikh had once been part of the same Inghimasi unit.

al-Sheikh said, “Did you hear the one about the Russian sweating his balls off in Syria and then the Syrian freezing his nuts off in Russia?”

Khalimov couldn’t help but crack a smile at his friend’s ability to find the humour in almost all situations. Indeed, they had both come from decidedly differing backgrounds—though al-Sheikh remained ignorant to Khalimov’s Persian ancestry.

Back in the mid-2000s, the twenty-year-old Khalimov arrived in Iraq under the cover story of being from the North Caucasus Republic of Ingushetia and escaping the Russian FSB for his role in the uprising.

He joined the army of the Ahlus Sunnah in Iraq, and the initial mocking of him as the ‘crazy Russian’ died after a few performances against the new regime’s forces in Samarra.

His Quds training had given him a strong grasp of Arabic—which he hid—and a thorough understanding of the differences between the Sunni and Shia sects of Islam.

In a short time, he was summoned to meet with its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

If it hadn’t been for Khalimov’s rigorous training, the bespectacled, cropped-haired, heavy-bearded Islamic theologist might have made even more of an impression on the young Khalimov.

One of Baghdadi’s questions for him was, “To whom is the greater enemy of Islam? The Infidel who declares himself your enemy or the apostate who kneels beside you during Salah and shows you empty hands only to stab you when your back is turned?”

Khalimov had stayed with Baghdadi, throwing a heavy veil on his scepticism of his teachings. He suspected Baghdadi might have known. However, Khalimov, being highly competent, ever-increasingly became Baghdadi’s sword, especially during the period of the army of the Ahlus Sunnah’s dissolution and its metamorphism into the rising Islamic State of Iraq.

And this proved to be to Khalimov’s great advantage as Baghdadi rose through the ranks to become its highest leader.

However, the atmosphere had become severely oppressive and dangerous as the Shia regime looked to settle old scores.

Just at the point Khalimov began considering a request for an extraction from his handlers in Tehran, the uprisings in Syria and the Arab Spring began.

And Baghdadi displayed his vision and killer instinct by sending Khalimov with one of his disciples, Abu Mohamed al-Yulani, to Syria to start a new chapter.

“Our friend will need your expertise, Khalimov. You will help him with whatever he needs. Stay close to him. Make him feel that you are loyal to him.”

Khalimov had frowned. “I will be loyal to him.”

“No,” Baghdadi had said sharply. “You are loyal to me.”

“Is that not the same?”

“It is, until it isn’t.”

Khalimov hadn’t fully understood at the time. Nevertheless, still, he aided al-Yulani in infiltrating and persuading the other rebel groups into the Caliph whilst making use of their impressive US-supplied equipment and armaments.

The new organisation’s name was al-Nusra Front.

Now, in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, Khalimov said in response to his friend’s rhetorical question, “Makes a change from sweating our balls off.”

“I preferred that.”

“I was just thinking about the first time—remember?”

“Of course I remember—are you saying I have a weakness of the mind?”

“Calm yourself, Jamal. Your weakness of the mind goes without saying.”

He could hear his friend smile before he answered, “Remind me what happened there again?”

“That snake al-Yulani decided he wanted Syria all to himself.”

“He always said that al-Baghdadi had promised it to him.”

“No,” said Khalimov. “The Emir said he could run Syria on his behalf.”

“I like how you still call him Emir, my friend.”

It was true—even now, Khalimov played the loyal servant.

To settle the dispute, both al-Yulani and al-Baghdadi approached al-Qaeda in Iraq’s main boss, Ayman al-Zawahiri, for a resolution.

And even when Zawahiri ruled in Yulani’s favour and Baghdadi mutinied, Khalimov carried out his orders to attack al-Nusra’s Front.

Khalimov’s skill had been recognised during the clashes in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor governorate, as his various ambushes proved effective in killing tens and tens of al-Nusra Front fighters.

He remained loyal to Baghdadi and ISIS when Zawahiri disavowed al-Qaeda to have any further relations with ISIS, also known by its Arabic acronym Daesh.

And Tehran, acknowledging his status within an enemy regime, honoured him and his family fiscally.

Khalimov gripped the HIMERA G1 Pro handheld radio attached to the left shoulder strap of his webbing. The HIMERA G1 had been issued to the Ukrainian military, with one of its features being a constant flicking between frequencies, making it near impossible to detect and jam using electronic warfare countermeasures.

The Persian recognised that the equipment and weapons picked up in the Georgian town named Gori originated in the Ukrainian military—to give credence to their hand in the operation should Khalimov and his men fail.

“Komodo. Hawk. The bird is in sight. Should arrive in the nest in seven minutes. Wait for my signal. Stay off the air unless there’s an emergency. Over.”

The team leader—who had chosen the call sign ‘Komodo’ after the Komodo dragon—nearer the port acknowledged his transmission over the net, as did the second sniper position—call sign ‘Hawk’.

He had allowed his call sign to be ‘Leopard’ after his moniker, ‘Leopard of Palmyra’. His training had warned against codenames that could identify an individual, but Khalimov knew the name inspired morale and loyalty amongst his men.

As a Quds Force officer, Khalimov had studied the military tactics and procedures of the nations they worked to undermine.

He liked how the British used a system of numbers and letters for their call signs but decided to keep the ISIS system as he knew it strengthened their identity and perhaps resolve.

The Middle East veteran had briefed his men to look out for his flashlight signal in the improbable event that the communications proved impossible or the transmissions too difficult to understand.

Not ideal, given that those guarding the shipment would have their eyes wide to anything unusual—or at least they should have.

Khalimov asked al-Sheikh, “Any changes to the personnel within your view?”

“Not since the last time I checked, nine seconds ago.”

The jibe relaxed Khalimov a little.

The intrusive thought came again—as it always did when he and his men were about to pass the point of no return—that maybe this was a set-up.

The vessel eased into its berth.

Khalimov breathed through his nerves as he watched the dispatch and receiver teams go through the series of security measures before the back tail of the craft craned down.

Two of the receiving party climbed in, one holding a Kindle-like device the Iranian guessed to be the cargo manifest. He then observed them pointing to various containers.

The dispatch pair then proceeded to open them.

The first one confirmed his guess that it was the Starstreak launcher—that would be the first armament they would want to verify.

They appeared to check around half the containers.

Khalimov had been briefed that the security team of the actual craft had been booked by a Filipino company specialising in undercutting more professional—and thus more costly—Western European companies.

“Glorified security guards” had been the term used.

As for the Russian infantrymen, if Khalimov wasn’t mistaken, he guessed them to be in the grip of alcohol.

Not that he’d ever allowed alcohol past his lips.

Khalimov hadn’t survived this long by taking chances, hence requesting two sniper rifles.

The Strategist’s intel had indicated that for some preposterous reason, the entire armaments shipment would be offloaded and then guarded by the Russian receiver team for approximately fifteen minutes before the loading vehicle arrived.

The assault team had been briefed to wait until ten minutes after all the containers were offloaded onto the port’s quayside.

Khalimov didn’t know whether this to be accurate intelligence or if The Strategist had somehow engineered it to be so—but knew the time could be invaluable.

As he observed the dispatch party begin to offload the final remaining containers, he pressed the pressel. “Ten minutes.”

Mercifully, both the extraction party and the second sniper acknowledged.

The cargo ship seemed to pull away with mocking slowness. However, as the time to ambush closed in, it had sailed off to a reasonable distance.

Khalimov got back on the radio, “Hawk, lazing your target now. Tell me when seen.”

The Quds officer trained the infra-red laser on one of the men who he could see wore the two beige horizontal stripes across his rank slide, denoting a senior sergeant.

“Confirmed, Leopard.”

“Good. Wait for my count.”

He said to al-Sheikh as he ‘lazed’ another target, “Hyena, I cannot see the detail of his rank slide, but I think he is a junior officer. I want you to take him out on my count.”

“Acknowledged, Leopard,” replied his friend, in full-on professional mode now.

He waited a few seconds before opening the net again. “Hawk. Hyena. Acquire your targets… Three, two, one, fire.”

Khalimov heard the ‘phunft’ of al-Sheikh’s suppressed sniper rifle. He watched both targets collapse with the blood mist exploding from their heads.

A moment later, “Hawk. Hyena. Watch and shoot.”

The two snipers began to shoot anything in the vicinity that moved—he had briefed them to avoid the containers despite The Strategist’s assertion they were bullet-proof.

“Komodo. Go, go, go.”

“Acknowledged, Leopard.”

The weapon systems had suppressors, except the two M240 machine guns operated by the diversion pair on the far right of the port’s perimeter fence.

He could hear the long bursts.

If he heard an increase in the intensity of the gunfire, he’d know it would be from the port’s security personnel.

Khalimov couldn’t see the security gate from his vantage point.

He had disciplined himself to stay off the radio unless necessary, especially when the ‘kinetic’ part of any operation was underway; he had known too many times when young, inexperienced officers or leaders expressed their anxiety with constant status report requests.

The extraction team rewarded his patience as he watched the recommissioned KamAZ-43114 careen down the metalled road with Ural-4320s in improvised armour, both in front and to the rear of it.

When the vehicles screeched into the area, the immediate threats had been neutralised.

The sirens screamed around the port, and Khalimov knew the next three minutes would be crucial.

He saw the extraction team depart the vehicles except for the drivers.

They divided in two as he instructed, one half spinning out to provide outward-facing protection and the other setting about loading the ordinance.

Khalimov opened the net. “Komodo, step back two steps and look for identification.”

“Yes, Leopard.”

Khalimov used the infrared targeting system from his rifle to identify the javelin container.

“Can you see it?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Next, follow my identification. It is the body five steps away to your north-west. See?”

He saw the extraction team leader take a moment before acknowledging, “Yes.”

“The key is in left leg pocket—the one midway down his thigh.”

Khalimov steadied his breathing as he heard the gunfire intensify.

The diversion pair would martyr themselves if necessary. Still, Khalimov never liked losing men and so had instructed them to perform a fighting extraction in the hopes of luring the port’s security away.

The Strategist had briefed Khalimov that the port’s security cameras would not be an issue—and he hadn’t been wrong yet.

Komodo’s voice sounded in his ear. “Got it.”

“Good. Go over to the box and unlock the top.”

He watched the team leader do so.

“Done.”

“The code for the next lid is 4,1,2,2,1.”

“Yes… I mean done.”

“Good. Load it.”

The Starstreak came out of the casing. A moment later, Hawk’s voice came on the air. “A security team has disappeared down the western edge of the perimeter using the containers as cover. I could not get a significant shot.”

“Acknowledged, Hawk,” said Khalimov before he continued, “Komodo. Take as many missiles as you can. Disregard the rest of the weapons.”

“But we can take a few of the boxes. They are not heavy. We—”

“I said leave them,” snapped Khalimov.

“Yes, Leopard,” came the chastened but clear reply.

He watched the team leader exhort the rest, who quickly loaded several missiles back into the vehicles.

Just as the protection team began to peel off to do the same, al-Shiekh’s sniper rifle fired several shots.

“The security forces have arrived.”

His scope flew to see the Russian port security in disarray under both his snipers’ shooting.

He switched back to see the extraction team fan out to attack.

Hitting the pressel, he barked, “Komodo, stand down and extract. Hawk and Hyena will cover your escape.”

It took a moment, but they complied, filing back into the vehicles.

The will of Allah shielded the engine blocks and tyres from the sporadic return fire as they reversed.

The sounds of suppressed rounds being fired kept a steady cadence as the vehicles disappeared from his view.

He got back on the net. “Hyena, keep suppressing them for thirty seconds and then extract.”

Khalimov knew the port no longer had any drones due to them being dispatched to the frontline.

The mission brief stated the rescue helicopter was currently out of commission. In any event, Khalimov doubted the port’s security chief would dare order the rescue helicopter’s dispatch under gunfire.

Still, he didn’t want to take chances.

He told his friend, “We will stay in position for a few minutes. I want to ensure the helicopter is not dispatched.”

“I thought Alastiratijiu said it was broken?”

“I do not trust strangers unnecessarily.”

His friend laughed before reciting an Arabic saying, “‘Be wary around your enemy once, and your friend a thousand times. A double-crossing friend knows more about what harms you.’”

“One of the reasons we have stayed alive this long, my… friend.”

Suddenly, Khalimov felt sad—though al-Sheikh had used the quote in reference to The Strategist, he realised that the best way for an enemy to kill either of them would be through one another.

Then he broke into a huge grin at the apparent telepathy of his friend’s following comment. “Do not be troubled, Moshen—if they ask me, I will make it quick and painless.”

Khalimov replied, “I remember begging the Shura Council to let me kill you by subjecting you to being raped by a thousand goats. And then I realised it would not be rape, my Syrian friend.”

Both men laughed.

31

Beni finished packing his case with a feeling bordering on euphoria.

He had treated himself to a near-palatial suite in this Istanbul hotel.

The heavy fawn velvet curtains framed the stunning view of the jewelled Sea of Marmara.

He had finally completed his part for his country, and his multinational company was now his reward.

Around thirty minutes ago, Beni had a brief and coded conversation with Khalimov over a secure line before he sent ‘The Immortal’ the tactical file detailing everything he needed to know to steal the radiological ‘dirty’ bomb.

As per Khalimov’s insistence, the strike area had been generalised to a two-and-a-half-kilometre section of road, allowing the war veteran to select his own ambush point.

Now sent, there would be no altering or retrieving the file, which Khalimov would immediately download to a separate location.

Beni would not be returning to his country for a while.

Teper had told him that Hezbollah’s special operations unit, al-Hajj Redwan Force, would take possession of it.

With the Redwan’s primary mission being to infiltrate Northern Israel, Beni knew it to be an easy guess that their intention with the bomb would be Tel Aviv.

But Teper had stated that it would never go off—that the Redwan team would be tracked and arrested.

Their confessions would give Israel the political high ground to ignite a war with Iran.

Beni had decided to take an extended break to Australia for a few months.

His flight left in four hours, but he didn’t mind enjoying a beer in the Brewmark Pub at Istanbul International Airport Terminal.

His training had expressly forbade him to shed his deep-cover identity of being a devout Muslim Arab. Still, Beni liked to live dangerously and felt deserving of a celebratory drink with his mission over.

He took out his phone and opened Uber, seeing one to be a mere three minutes away.

Unusually for Turkey, he saw the driver as an attractive white woman named Ciara with short blonde hair—unusual, especially in this part of the world.

He looked around the room’s opulence and departed for the entrance.

He felt a flutter of harmony as the blue Skoda Superb Executive pulled up just as the doorman opened the glass entrance for him.

Ciara, who got out, seemed even more striking than her profile picture, given her height and gym-hewn physique.

The dark blue suit trousers and cream shirt effortlessly hung off her.

Had he been ten years younger, Beni might have chanced his arm.

Wait, she’s a cab driver and knows you have stayed at a five-star hotel, he thought optimistically.

She flashed him a bright smile as she opened the trunk and reached for his suitcase.

“It’s OK,” he said, placing the suitcase and shoulder bag in himself.

She closed it, and they both got in the Superb.

Ordinarily, Beni would have slid into the back, but the pull of sitting beside and conversing with an attractive woman proved too enticing.

He got in and broke the ice with, “Good car?”

Ciara surprised him with a British accent.

“Oh, yeah, nearly a hundred and fifty thousand miles and the most it’s needed is a new battery, oil filter and tyres. Never let me down.”

“Same platforms as the Audis,” he said.

“Yeah, people pay a lot for a badge, don’t they?”

He smiled in agreement. “That they do.”

She turned to him, and he felt a little taken aback by her sea-green eyes as she said, “I must apologise in advance, but I am running low on fuel. Could I stop at the petrol station along the way—or gas station, whatever you call it here?”

Under her disarming smile, he said, “Of course.”

“Thank you.”

He asked, “Which part of the UK are you from?”

“Nowhere in particular. I was an army brat, so we moved around quite a bit,” Ciara said. “Where doth one hail from?”

He laughed. “Israel. Though I am off to Australia now.”

“Jet-setter, eh? What do you do?”

Beni said, “I own a motorcycle chain. We sell them to you but also fix them for you.”

“Could be seen as a conflict of interest—could sell them faulty bikes just to collect the money for fixing them,” she said with a tease.

“That’s what warranties are for.”

“Of course.”

“How did you find yourself in Turkey?”

“A man. What else?” she sighed. “Older. He’s currently in Europe on business now.”

“Married?”

Ciara lifted her hand to display the absence of a ring.

Beni felt a jolt of disappointment—maybe she would have been receptive to coffee if he hadn’t had to leave.

Do I have to leave right now? he thought.

He saw the red and white gas station ahead and pondered whether to ask her.

“I won’t be long.”

When she got out, placed a credit card on the scanner and beginning to fill up, he had the opportunity to admire her figure more.

He imagined her in a cocktail dress—before the mental image morphed into her being naked.

Sliding in beside him, he told himself to ask her nearer the airport; that way, if she rejected him, his embarrassment would be shorter lived.

The Superb approached the precipice of the main road, where a trio of dark-haired, broad, fit-looking men stood around a Maroon Renault Megane parked just off to the side.

As the Superb pulled alongside, looking for the opportunity to join the main highway, one of the men ducked his face to the window of Beni’s side and knuckle-tapped the window.

Beni began, “What does he wan—”

The two back doors opened, and as he turned his face, a pistol confronted him like a poised cobra.

He barely made out that two of the men now sat in the back seats.

A voice of pure menace leapt from Ciara’s lips into his heart.

“There is a Beretta 92FS pointed at your lower back. The car seat will not prevent the round from severing your spinal column if you make any attempt to escape or signal your distress, do you understand?”

His mouth fell, but no words came out.

Iron fingers snatched his jaw. His head shunted against the window.

She growled, “Do. You. Understand?”

“Yes,” he said, voice tight with fear.

She released her shockingly strong grip before passing her pistol to one of the back passengers.

“Now, Rephidim,” she began as she pulled the Superb out with the Megane directly behind. “We can have a chat.”

Connor, surprised at the quality of the food, felt he could eat fifty of the beef Pelmeni—Russian dumplings—that had been placed in front of him.

The ship’s mess and galley—dining area and kitchen, respectively—looked more like a British working-class living room than on board a vessel.

Eighteen men sat on crimson-backed bolted seats at a solid steel table bordered by green plastic.

The walls displayed a weird kaleidoscope of framed health and safety-type notices, peeling posters of sports figures, nude women and grand portraits of historic land and sea battles.

Connor felt relief that they had at least allowed him to eat before plying him with drink. As Connor understood it, the body had two enzyme systems to break down alcohol—one in the stomach and one in the liver. Food helped retain the alcohol in the stomach, allowing the first system—Terminator One—to break down the alcohol before it went to Terminator Two in the liver.

Therefore, he hadn’t been as shy as he would have in indulging in his hosts’ hospitality.

Also, a waiter poured a type of tea into Connor’s wooden tankard mug, painted to depict a berry bush all the way around.

The others had similarly extravagantly decorated mugs.

Both Nikolai and the captain sat across from him, chomping away. Being a little wary, Connor gestured to his drink and asked, “What is this?”

The captain answered, “We name it Kalmyk tea. It is black tea, butter, milk and salt.”

Connor knew the Kalmyk to be a Mongolian nomadic people. I wonder if Genghis and his merry men necked this? he thought.

He took a mouthful and decided he liked it.

Nikolai asked him, “Where did you know to fight?”

Connor decided to abbreviate his answer, “I joined a boxing club when I was a boy. I learnt to wrestle and submit people when I was an adult.”

The captain translated his answer to Nikolai, who nodded and said, “Good fighter. Good grapple. Good punch.”

“Good punch?” exclaimed Connor. “You barely flinched.”

Connor mimicked a cyborg punching itself.

Nikolai, seemingly understanding, laughed and sent a stream of rapid Russian to the captain.

The captain said, “Nikolai once had a brain scan after an accident. His skull was discovered to be, as you English say, ‘thick as thieves’.”

Connor wondered how the captain could fuck up the idiom, but he got the point, and it soothed his pride a little.

“Where did you learn how to fight?”

Both men looked at one another before Nikolai pointed behind Connor.

Connor turned and saw one of the posters showing a much slimmer and younger-looking Nikolai in a Judogi by a mat with a cheering crowd in the background.

“Holy fuck,” said Connor. “Where was that?”

Nikolai smiled. “Sergiev Posad. Russian National Championships. I second to Olympic silver medal.”

Connor smiled, pressed his hands together and, raising his eyes, proclaimed to God, “Thank you for saving me.”

Nikolai smiled broadly but said, “God not save you. You being fighter saved you.”

The captain nodded as if in agreement and then asked, “Why do you come here?”

Bruce McQuillan had repeatedly stressed to Connor that you didn’t give away any information or trust anyone unless you absolutely had to.

“Business.”

The captain laughed uproariously. “We know, because no one comes to Georgia for fun.”

Connor laughed, as did several around them despite the captain saying it in English.

Sensing he should give him something, the black operations agent said, “It’s a favour for a business associate.”

Nikolai spoke in rapid Russian for a few seconds.

The captain looked at Connor and said, “No animal can fight all battles. I have watched King of the Jungle walk away from a kill once too many hyenas come.”

“I appreciate the cryptic advice dressed up as a ‘Lion King’ quote,” said Connor, raising his tankard.

The captain’s smile seemed to suggest he understood the gist.

The waiter came around again and slid what looked like french crepes with bowls of mincemeat and sour cream in the centre of the table.

The captain gestured to Connor. “Enjoy your food. You do not know when it is going to be your next good meal.”

Something in the way he said it told Connor the captain had meant to say ‘if’.

Bruce suddenly became aware of the enjoyment he felt watching the film, nestled in the apartment’s leather sofa with Adriana beneath his arm.

He had acquiesced to her pick of Guy Ritchie’s ‘The Covenant’ over his choice of Michael Mann’s ‘Ferrari’.

She turned to him. “Have you ever been to Afghanistan?”

“A bit after my time, but bless you.”

“I meant when the Russians invaded.”

He laughed. “Cheeky mare. Though I suppose I was twenty-one by the time that conflict ended.”

“What were you like at twenty-one?”

He shrugged. “I hadn’t learnt to step back yet.”

“To observe the bigger picture.”

“That’s right,” he said. “And my bladder was stronger. Let me up.”

He paused the film as she lifted her head to release him off the sofa.

He promptly fell to his knees, clutching his lower back, “Christ, I must have pulled something.”

Instantly, Adriana appeared at his side, her hand replacing his as she said soothingly, “Are you OK?”

“Never better,” he said, producing an octagonal, midnight blue velvet ring box. “Stand up.”

She did so with a smirk.

He swirled into the knight’s kneel and opened the box to reveal the round diamond with an eighteen-carat white gold band.

“Adriana Cruz, will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she beamed, reaching out to stand him up.

They shared a kiss and a tight embrace.

Only when they had disengaged did she hold her hand out for him to slide on the ring.

After admiring it, she said, “Do you really need the bathroom?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Then let’s get back to the film. It’s getting good.”

No sooner had they returned to their positions than his phone vibrated.

He took it out, read the message title and said, “I’ll be no more than fifteen.”

The Italian-Albanian nodded. “Of course.”

Bruce ducked into his soundproofed study, fired up the laptop and watched the images of both Ciara and Raz Sharir unpixelate into clarity.

Both had a white background, as did he. After the trio met security protocols, Ciara began, “In four days, a convoy carrying an armament of radiological weapons will be ambushed by a group of approximately twelve men mainly recruited from Islamic State Caucasus Province formerly known as Vilayat Kavkaz. They will be led by a Moshen Khalimov, known within ISIS as ‘The Leopard of Palmyra’.”

“I would say that maybe resurrection does exist,” said Raz grimly. “But since it is believed that Moshen Khalimov is also known as Alkhalid, that would be impossible, as one would have to die first.”

Bruce’s trachea cooled on hearing the name and sought confirmation for something he already suspected by asking Raz, “What do you know of Khalimov’s movements in the last few years?”

Raz stared at him through the screen momentarily, “Very few confirmed sightings. A lot of conjecture. As you both know, the Quds Force has eight directorates—he is confirmed to be the star of Sabotage and Special Operations. Suggestions have been made that Moshen Khalimov was one of the key planners of Black Saturday—some say ‘the’ key planner.”

“We have overheard similar rumours, sir,” said Ciara, with enough ambiguity as to who she’d spoken to.

Bruce said, “Carry on, Miss Robson.”

Ciara continued, “The convoy will be ambushed on the route north of the hamlet of Baza Otdykha Biryuzyak, just short of the border with the Republic of Kalmykia and around fifteen kilometres away from the decommissioning station. Unfortunately, strike point could be anywhere along a two-and-a-half-kilometre section of the road.”

Raz asked, “Rephidim did not specify the strike point?”

Bruce answered for her, “Khalimov would have insisted on choosing the ambush location, given his tactical experience and his men’s knowledge of the terrain.”

“That’s correct,” confirmed Ciara. “From there, the bomb will be transported over the border to Azerbaijan, which, as you’re aware, is a political and military ally of Iran. From there, its route is unknown, but the guess is that it will land in the hands of Hezbollah’s Redwan force.”

“If anyone could smuggle it into Israel, the Redwan will be able to,” said Raz. “If there were Russians high enough we could trust, they could initiate a dummy convoy for a propaganda coup of a counter-ambush.”

“But there isn’t, is there, sir?” Ciara asked almost rhetorically.

She directed her question at Raz, and Bruce noticed that it conveyed her competency by grasping the dilemma and her respect for the assassination chief.

Raz’s face paused before he admitted, “No.”

Bruce said, “I know someone. Might be the last favour I can ask from him.”

“So our two men are still to meet on schedule at the port of Poti?”

When Bruce nodded, Ciara said, “Let’s hope they play nice together.”

32

Connor stood under the cold spray, hoping it would sharpen his mind against the last vestiges of lethargy that last night’s alcohol might have induced.

Mercifully, the drinking hadn’t been as raucous as he feared.

After a few mugs of mead—an old alcoholic drink made of berry juice, honey and vodka—Connor managed to feign sickness by running out of the wheelhouse and, with his back to the view screen, jammed his fingers down his throat to induce vomiting.

When he returned, he lied in explaining to them that the reason behind his pathetic drinking performance was that he was a long-term teetotaller.

The captain seemed to revel in his own magnanimity in sending Connor to his room, and due to it being relatively early, the Englishman had managed to acquire a full night’s sleep.

He got out, dried and, despite it being pre-dawn, dressed in a dark green woollen sweater, stretch jeans and boots.

Though small, the room had a cheap black and chrome kettle with a green plastic basket full of sachets of different types of coffees and a short stack of Styrofoam cups with accompanying lids.

Connor made himself a black coffee.

The black-ops agent removed the tankard from the handle of the door and the wood chair from in front of it, the idea being that if someone had intruded in the middle of the night, the clattering of the tankard to the uncarpeted floor and the impediment of the chair might have given him a fighting chance.

He took out and donned the quilt-lined olive jacket Roza’s people had supplied him with, shouldered his backpack and left the room.

As he walked the corridors of the ship’s underbelly, he lamented how street smarts were a dying art.

Again, he remembered his father imparting some basic techniques to him:

“Use shop windows or any other reflective surfaces to look around without making it obvious.”

“Walk confidently even in areas you don’t know, take your hands out your pockets and wear your jacket unzipped so if someone grabs you, it can come off, so you can fight or fuck off.”

“Swing wide around street corners. Know where the exits are in any enclosed space. If a car is following you, suddenly turn and walk the opposite way—they’ll have to get out or do a three-point turn.”

“Take your keys out before getting into your car or house so you’re not fucking around looking for them, and you can use them as a weapon.”

As he made his way out onto the deck, he let the view of the amber line on the Black Sea’s horizon sweep into his chest.

He remembered his father being restrained with his humour. When he had told the teenage Connor, “Always check there is toilet paper in those enclosed holders before taking a shit,” he had meant it seriously, and it had saved Connor from rooting around in his pockets for a tissue more than once.

But when he did drop a joke, the effect tended to be amplified due to its rarity—and he wondered if Tom had absorbed this from his father.

When Connor joined the Royal Marines, Tom spent more and more time with Connor’s dad—he guessed his father correctly deduced that Tom would eventually run the family and wished to groom him for the role.

Connor also pondered whether he’d elevated Bruce McQuillan to father-figure status despite already being in his mid-twenties when he met the Scotsman.

Part of him didn’t think it to be true—most of their discussions centred on the work, the operations and elements pertaining to them.

The Scotsman had told him years ago—when Connor had helped extract him from the clutches of a particularly effective Russian Bratva brigade—that Connor’s working for him was to be purely voluntary.

However, Connor had never turned him—or his successor, Ciara—down for a mission, not even with the advent of his son, Jackson, the biggest open secret in the Ryder family.

Connor suspected he not only had a great admiration for Bruce but also that because he didn’t have daily contact with him, he hadn’t developed the familiarity to be disillusioned.

The sun began to crown, and he felt its energy billow within him.

He realised he did love the exploration of the world this work afforded him—it was just that the constant jeopardy sometimes prevented him from enjoying it.

The Yorkshireman remembered a time when he wouldn’t have been able to fully possess this view without a cigarette—now he knew he wouldn’t be able to finish one without feeling sick.

He sipped his coffee, grateful for the respite, knowing that the next few days would be fraught with adversity and danger.

“My friend. You rise early like me,” came the captain’s voice behind him.

“Yeah, waking up is the body telling you you have had enough rest.”

The captain smiled. “I agree, my friend. Sleeping in is a Western luxury.”

“You’re telling me that no Russian sleeps in?”

“Well, fewer than their Western counterparts,” said the captain. “Look, there is the harbour.”

Connor squinted to see it. “Oh yeah, so it is.”

“Nikolai says you will travel back with us in one week?”

“That’s the plan—if it survives contact.”

“Survives contact?”

“It is just a phrase used in the British military—’no plan survives contact’—meaning sometimes the best intentions go out the window when the fighting begins.”

“Ahhh. Like Mike Tyson says, ‘Everyone has plan before they get punched in mouth.’”

“Yeah, exactly,” said Connor. “I am grateful to you and Nikolai for honouring your promise of making this the first stop.”

Inexplicably, the captain laughed before telling Connor, “This was always to be the first stop. Nikolai just likes to fuck with people.”

Connor felt the blended sensation of being pissed off and amused. “So, the fight was unnecessary?”

“Oh, it was necessary—you hit him first.”

“Touché.”

“I will leave you now,” said the captain.

The ship began to come alive as they neared the port. Connor finished the rest of his coffee, donning a green duffel jacket with the port’s company logo stitched to the right shoulder and an ID tag around his neck.

Viktoria had told him it would allow him to move within the port unchallenged.

Nikolai ambled towards him.

“Feeling better, my friend?”

“Yeah, just about.”

“Good,” said Nikolai with a wry smile before it disappeared. “You must be here at no later than ten o’clock in the morning. Not one minute later—I cannot hold the ship for you.”

“I fully understand. I will either be here on time or not at all.”

“I hope you return,” said Nikolai. “Then we can have rematch.”

Connor smiled. “You want me to kick the fuck out of you again, Mister Thirty-Three Ten jaw?”

“What is this Thirty-Three Ten jaw?”

“It’s just something I call men who can take a punch. When mobile phones became popular, Nokia brought out a model called the Thirty-Three Ten. It never broke even when you dropped it.”

“Ahh,” replied Nikolai. “It is not just jaw. I have a thick skull.”

Connor raised his eyes exaggeratedly. “Yes, Nikolai, I know!”

They laughed just as the ship bumped gently against the quayside.

The two men shook hands, and Connor made his way off the ship.

The Englishman followed the brief Ciara had given him to follow the coordinates to a point where he’d be collected.

He followed the Verbatim Securities GLONASS-GPS app on his phone, attempting to look like he belonged there and knew exactly where he was going.

The huge maritime-grade corten steel shipping containers of various colours stared down at him, knowing him to be an outsider even if the workers hovering around on the forklifts didn’t.

Connor memorised the route—almost half a click meandering to the north-eastern edge.

He hadn’t been given much information regarding his point of contact, only that a guy named Ibrahim would meet him with the challenge, ‘Who are you looking for?’ to which Connor would say, ‘Container eighty-four.’

If the challenge was, ‘Can I help you?’ it meant Ibrahim had been captured, and this was the challenge he’d have given his interrogators; the answer of ‘Container forty-eight’ would be Connor’s black herring.

He neared the rendezvous point and kept his eyes scanning.

Reaching it, he turned a wide corner to see a man dressed similarly to himself leaning against one of the containers, smoking.

He seemed a similar age and build to Connor, but a touch shorter. He sported a long face of strong angles with a well-groomed, short beard contouring his sharp cheekbones.

The nonchalance of his demeanour had Connor second-guessing if he was the contact.

The man raised his eyebrows and asked, “Who are you looking for?”

Connor noticed one of the eyes seemed to be offset—and a coil formed in his brain as he thought the man looked vaguely familiar.

His voice contained traces of classical Arabic, less-nasally French and High German.

“Container eighty-four.”

Ibrahim nodded before producing a white card with a black stripe and handing it to Connor.

“Security key card. Follow me,” replied Ibrahim, docking out his cigarette beneath a sturdy boot.

The Englishman did so.

He led him to the kind of building used as a temporary office on construction sites.

Ibrahim walked up to the window and scribbled on what Connor guessed to be a signing in and out sheet.

Next, he led him through a steel-fenced corridor at the end of which sat a three-pronged turnstile not dissimilar to those found in subway stations.

Once through a small industrial site of grey and white-painted peeling buildings wearing scaffolding, they reached a black Mercedes Sprinter and the central locking unlatched.

Connor reached for the back door to gauge Ibrahim’s reaction; however, his point of contact said nothing as Connor slung his gear into the back.

Once they departed, and after nothing had been spoken for a while, Connor said, “Look… ahem… Ibrahim. As much as I appreciate the whole playing hard to get demeanour, I could do with knowing what’s happening.”

“I understand. What have you been told?”

“That I have to meet you. We make our way into Dagestan. Prevent the capture of a radiological weapon by some derka-derkas—save the world.”

“Yeah,” said Ibrahim in the same tone. “I got told that, too.”

Alexey Orlov stood on the reinforced glass roof of his three-storey Swiss dacha. He looked out onto the scenic beauty of Lake Geneva as the breeze blew through his wavy brown hair and kissed his chest, partially exposed with the first three buttons of his white, flowy shirt undone.

The white-crested blue mountains produced a hazy reflection in the water.

This had been the fourth time he had visited since he voluntarily stepped down as the chief of the SVR and took a more leisurely position at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies.

And on the first three occasions, he had been forced to remind himself that he was no longer at the head of one of the world’s most cutthroat organisations and could fully absorb the ambience of the view.

Not today, however. The man who had requested this meeting always made him feel uneasy.

Much had to do with the respect he had held for his predecessor as the director of the SVR, who had stunned him by telling Orlov, “Do not go to great lengths to discover his identity. And if you discover it one day, be very careful in attempting to assassinate the man because the storm that failure would bring might not be in anyone’s interests.”

Orlov now did know the identity of the one they called Opekun—The Guardian—because Bruce McQuillan had revealed himself as such during Orlov’s visit to London a few years ago.

Of course, he had suspected McQuillan for a while before the confirmation—which, though hadn’t been especially pleasant, had ended cordially enough.

He heard the faint clicking of heels from behind.

The dacha’s maid—blonde, early thirties, wearing a distinctly Victorian English-looking black gown with a white rose neckline—said in perfect English, “Your appointment has arrived.”

“Did you offer him a drink?”

“Yes,” she said. “He asked for the Massandra wine. He has it now.”

Orlov nodded. “Bring me up the bottle, Christa.”

“Yes, sir,” she answered before disappearing back down the stairs.

The world’s oldest winery near Yalta produced the Massandra wine and had long been a favourite of his—and Opekun was letting him know that.

Orlov smoothed his white-stranded, wavy brown hair before stopping, feeling it akin to a woman preening for a date.

Bruce McQuillan rose from the stairs, holding the angular wine glass.

The Scotsman stood almost a Pyad’—handspan—taller than Orlov and had a handful of years of youth on him, despite grey flecking his hair more than the white did the Russian’s.

On looking at Bruce, Orlov felt vaguely aware that he himself had, though not fat, lost the hardness of physique since retirement.

The Scotsman wore a blue shirt, less flowy than his own, with a mere two buttons unlatched and similarly shaded trousers.

The tan belt matched the shoes.

Christa skirted around Bruce to place another glass on the circular, corner wood table.

She placed the glass down and quickly filled it two fingers off the top.

Orlov dismissed her with a nod.

He looked to see faint lines appear on McQuillan’s forehead, who asked, “Did you request for her to dress like that?”

Orlov snorted a smile. “She is the castle’s maid. Not mine. Please sit.”

The Russian sat a moment after Bruce, facing him.

The allegedly former black operations chief stated, “You mean, she’s Bruno De Silva’s maid.”

Orlov knew he shouldn’t have been surprised he would know the apartment was leased from one of Switzerland’s most distinguished bankers, despite the layers of secrecy.

“That is correct,” said Orlov. “Are you looking for something similar for yourself and Miss Adriana Cruz?”

The mention of his girlfriend didn’t change Opekun’s expression, who said, “Adriana has kept her home in Northern Italy for a holiday home, but of course, you’re aware of that.”

Indeed, the old intelligence chief was aware.

“I was surprised to hear of your request to see me. Maybe you wish us to be acquaintances now that I am retired.”

“You had a great run,” said Bruce. “I was a little surprised that you allowed Petr Fradkov to outfox you, Alexey.”

“Fox is the wrong choice of animal,” said Orlov. “Snake, perhaps.”

“Funny that instead of directly superseding you, he backed a less capable man to be your successor whilst he took the role of deputy head of the Middle Eastern Department of Political Intelligence.”

Orlov ignored the statement, sipped his wine and asked, “Why have you come to see me today.”

“I need a couple of favours.”

“A couple?”

“Yes,” said Bruce. “Firstly, I want the safe extraction of an Anna Kostenko to the UK.”

Orlov smirked. “Anna Kostenko convinced the local FSB of her false identity and that she had been kidnapped. By the time her photograph had been recognised by one of the analysts, she had been returned to her uncle’s farm. When the officers went back to detain her, she had gone. No doubt she is in Kyiv. It seems you have had a wasted trip.”

“I do have another request.”

“And why would I do you a… favour?”

“Because the Quds Force hatched a plan to steal a Russian radiological dirty bomb as it is moved to be decommissioned through the North Caucasus. This bomb will be set off in Tel Aviv, Alexey—where your daughter is currently in hospital.”

Orlov opened his mouth, only to close it again. After a few moments, he asked, “How do you know for sure?”

“Are you aware that a shipment of Ukrainian arms was diverted to a port north of Sochi, where it was subsequently hijacked?”

Orlov shifted. “I am no longer a member of the Russian Intell—”

“Spare me, Alexey. A man like you will always maintain contacts and retain a degree of power, if for no other reason than self-preservation—even the new managers at Tesco will blame the previous manager for a few weeks.”

“Tesco the supermarket?”

“The point is, you know about the hijack of the Starstreak. And you know what I am saying is true. And you know the overall aims,” said Bruce. “What I don’t know is the overarching strategy.”

“If I did know, why would I tell a foreign intelligence agent?”

He watched Bruce raise his eyebrows. “Because I know you don’t like it. That’s why you were displaced.”

Indeed, Orlov’s voice of dissent had grown more insistent over the years during various inter-security-agency meetings and government briefings.

He remembered cautioning Putin directly after the president outlined his master plan that “…the West will turn the Ukrainians into the best trained, most resourced and highly-funded terrorists in the modern era, and gleefully watch us burn through manpower and finances.”

Not long after, he had endured the resentment-searing experience of being called into Putin’s Presidential Executive Office and ‘advised’ to step down.

“Loving your president’s policies and loving your country are, at times, different. Why would I tell you this so-called master plan?”

“Because I think your president is beginning to think of what his legacy should be. I think it revolves around expansion or, as he sees it, restoring a Russian empire. And that means war. A war could mean millions of Russians dead and another collapse.”

Indeed, the Scotsman’s words echoed his fears. Orlov had told Putin that consolidation should be his focus, not expansion.

“There is a high-level… partner within the Israeli Security Services.”

“Who?”

“I will never tell you.”

Bruce seemed to accept this with a nod, and Orlov said, “We told the partner an untruth. I told him that Iran was merely months away from obtaining nuclear weapons. Pointed out a location and other misdirections.”

“Why?”

“In the event of a full-blown war in the Middle East, the Americans would be forced to direct its entire foreign aid defence package to Israel. Saudi Arabia, too—they do not wish Iran to become the dominant power, and would redirect its focus away from funding ISIS here in the North Caucasus.”

Bruce said, “Leaving Ukraine vulnerable on both the battlefield and at the negotiation table. I already know this part.”

“What do you know of Transnistria?”

“A breakaway state still recognised internationally as part of Moldova. Nearly thirty per cent are ethnic Russians, making them the largest group.”

“That is correct—Putin is then to claim the Russian population there is being persecuted, and he will send a task force there.”

“And then on it goes.”

“Yes,” answered Orlov. “Almost ninety per cent of Narva’s population is Russian. That will be next.”

“Estonia is part of NATO—attacking Narva would trigger Article 5 of the charter.”

The former Russian spy chief looked at him and said, “Article 5 has the exact wording of ‘…such action as it deems necessary…’ And that might be supplying medical aid. Putin thinks that there is no political will for NATO to commit troops to save the Baltic States, let alone Narva. Especially as war burns in the Middle East.”

“A miscalculation on his part—that’s the whole point of NATO.”

“He does not believe in the West’s spine. Then he’ll go further.”

Bruce said, “The Gotland Island. The Suwalki Gap.”

“Yes. You know what Putin said about the collapse of the Soviet Union?”

“That it was the greatest geopolitical disaster of the last century.”

“Correct. The man is a true believer, and he has won his fifth election—he is in power for another six years.”

Bruce said, “A true believer that he could be slung in the gulag by the next administration looking for political points. But if he was the man to restore Russia to its former glory, he’d have a free pass for life.”

Alexey nodded. “No man wishes to spend his final years in prison. And though a moratorium has suspended its use since the nineties, the death sentence has not been abolished. One of the crimes it is used for is genocide—but he would be… what was the name… the myth name for the American Mafia gangster, John Gotti?”

“‘The Teflon Don’. Teflon is a coating that creates, amongst other things, a non-stick surface.”

“Yes,” said Orlov. “Returning the Baltic States to Russia would make Vladimir Putin a ‘Teflon Tsar’—no politician would touch him even if he became very sick.”

The one they named Opekun said, “Help me to help you.”

Orlov looked at him, took a sip and said, “Like you helped my predecessor. Which is why he protected you?”

“Is that what he did?”

“Maybe not. But like a dog that chases a cat but does not wish to catch it.”

Bruce sipped his wine. “Not that you need a history lesson regarding your own country, but the landscape post-Soviet collapse was like the Wild West. A lot of Red Army officers and soldiers burning with resentment and the rise of various mafias—the most ruthless and cunning in their Darwinian rise to the top. And alliances were formed—alliances you wouldn’t have expected. Alliances that meant a stolen tactical nuclear weapon might be exploded in Western Europe. Officially, suitcase nukes have never existed, but we know better, don’t we, Alexey?”

It took Orlov a moment to process this. “To be exploded, or to be threatened to be exploded?”

“The former.”

“For what purpose?”

“So that Russia could be brought to heel. There would have been definitive evidence of where the warhead would have come from. NATO would have been actioned to seize all former Soviet Republics, which would have been assimilated into the EU.”

“You think my country was so weak they would have allowed that?”

“Yes, I do, Alexey. Yeltsin would have been forced to play ball,” said Bruce. “And I helped prevent that.”

Orlov got the feeling that the word ‘helped’ might have been an expression of modesty.

“Which is why my predecessor became the head of the SVR despite his… background.”

“I made sure that your predecessor received the credit. You never wondered how he acquired his position despite his humble beginnings? Let’s not deny that there isn’t a version of the ‘Old Boys Club’ in Russia that is just as rife with nepotism.”

Indeed, though Orlov remained convinced of his own competence, he knew he might not have found himself in the top position had it not been for certain familial connections.

Orlov stared at the Scotsman momentarily before asking, “How do you believe I can assist you?”

“I currently have an asset in the North Caucasus—I want him to be given a team.”

“You think I have men loyal to me, and me only?” asked Orlov rhetorically. “I am a consultant for a think-tank, not the head of the Sluzhba vneshney razvedki anymore.”

“Let’s not pretend you cannot exert any influence,” said the Scotsman. “Because if it comes to light this radiological bomb is Russian after it goes off, not only will the world unite in its condemnation, but China and North Korea will be forced to turn their backs on Russia.”

Alexey Orlov considered his options and the man in front of him—the man was, if nothing else, a man of honour.

And to have such a Westerner to call upon in the future might be very useful.

“I can give your man access to a weapons storage unit in Dagestan. I can arrange transport vehicles without needing your man to be present.”

“But you can’t provide assets of your own?”

“No.”

“What about access for assets of mine?”

Orlov chuckled. “You think I will grant access to Western soldiers on Russian soil? No.”

The Scotsman said nothing for a few moments and then, “What about me?”

Orlov frowned. “Your age is much advanced to play ‘Cowboys and Indians’ in Dagestan, no?”

He watched the Britisher smile. “You don’t stop playing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop playing.”

“You believe that?”

“A man sometimes has to lie to himself to achieve,” said Bruce. “But one thing that isn’t a lie is that I am a very good friend to have, Alexey.”

33

Connor and Ibrahim didn’t speak for a time as the Mercedes Sprinter cut through the mist.

Connor broke the silence with, “How we planning to cut through the border?”

“Our analysts have identified a… gap,” answered Ibrahim.

“By ‘our’, you mean ha-Mosád le-Modiʿín u-le-Tafkidím Meyuḥadím.”

Connor thought he could feel Ibrahim side-eye him as he said, “Mossad is fine, though I am impressed with your pronunciation.”

“I liked to verse myself in different cultures, which reminds me, do you know how an Israeli makes tea?”

“Educate me.”

“He brews it.”

“Has anyone laughed at that joke?”

“I was waiting until I met an Israeli—I’ll consign it to one of the jokes that doesn’t make my Netflix special.”

“Perhaps.”

Connor said, “Just so we are on the same page, we are here to stop a radiological dirty bomb set to be stolen before being transported down the Caspian Sea into Azerbaijan. Whether it’ll go through Armenia, then Turkey, or Iran and Iraq, we don’t know, but it is destined for Lebanon via Syria. Then it is due to explode in Northern Israel.”

“That’s the fear.”

“Why don’t you tell me what the endgame is? So I know that we are on the same page.”

Ibrahim remained quiet for a moment before saying, “Our concern is that it makes its way into Israel—even if it isn’t set off. If our security forces discover it, it could be a catalyst for… what is the term? A ‘special operation’ in Iran.”

“Define ‘special operation’.”

“An invasion of Iran.”

Connor glanced at him. “To what end would Israel want to invade? Remember the adage for Western conventional militaries, ‘We do deserts, we don’t do mountains’? Besides, the IDF has one hundred and seventy thousand active personnel—not even half a million reservists. You couldn’t hold it even if you won—which, admittedly, you probably would. And Hezbollah would fully kick off with you.”

“They don’t want to hold it. There are three main components for a nuclear weapon: mining uranium and turning it into yellowcake—turning that yellow uranium powder into UF6 gas, which runs through the centrifuges at different enrichment levels. The Iranians are believed to have mastered both these levels. Some believe they are near to achieving the next stage.”

“Taking the enriched uranium and inserting it into a device that can be used as a weapon.”

“Yes,” said Ibrahim. “They want to derail Iran’s nuclear programme—there is reason to believe that their current nuclear complex is so deep and well-fortified that not even a BLU-109 bunker buster missile could penetrate it.”

Connor said, “I have to ask, if Iran is near to developing a nuclear capability and the Ayatollah seems intent on wiping Israel off the face of the Earth, then why wouldn’t you use it as an excuse to deal with the issue?”

Ibrahim sighed and said, “Because it seems your boss, and now my boss, believes it is a Russian lie.”

It occurred to Connor that his last check-in had been in Crimea.

Connor said, “I was led to believe that since the Yom Kippur War, the Agranat Commission mandated that the heads of the three intelligence agencies met every month. I wouldn’t have thought Israel could afford a situation where the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing?”

“You are right, it can’t. But we can’t be sure yet.”

“Who is we?”

“We are a kind of agency under the administrative umbrella of Mossad but almost fully independent of it.”

“Almost?”

“The chief has to check in from time to time—demarcation, so to speak.”

It dawned on Connor that he was sitting next to his Israeli counterpart.

The two men did not talk for a while until Ibrahim took a turn-off at a sign Connor didn’t have time to decipher.

Cresting a curve along a hillside, Connor saw an arching red roof supported by beige columns in the distant valley floor, reminding him of a Pizza Hut restaurant.

Except, this looked to have a wire fence around it and a security gate.

Connor could make out a BAE-125-700 and Hawker 4000 jet through the columns.

“A private airfield?” asked Connor rhetorically.

“Yes.”

“How the fuck have you managed to pull this off?”

“I didn’t,” said Ibrahim in a way that prompted Connor not to ask any more questions.

The Mercedes swirled down into the bowl before hitting flat ground.

The lack of personnel mildly surprised Connor—he could see the head of what he assumed to be an attendant sitting in a checkpoint box in front of the retractable security gate.

As they approached, Connor asked, “You been here before?”

“No.”

“Not concerned it could be an ambush?”

“I have to trust the intelligence I receive.”

“When did you receive it?”

Connor’s nerves bit when Ibrahim answered, “A few hours before I met you.”

“What was the original plan?”

“Drive across Georgia. Ditch the van near the border and hike in.”

Connor, thinking of the Yukon mountains, said, “Yeah, a private jet sounds like a better choice.”

Ibrahim slowed the Mercedes to a crawl. As it crept closer, the head in the box raised itself a little out before sitting back down, apparently unconcerned.

They came to a halt.

Ibrahim said, “I’ll do the talking. If you’re addressed, don’t open your mouth.”

“OK.”

A portly man with a crumpled, untucked pale blue shirt and a holstered revolver perched on his hip appeared. Connor noticed the leather strap clamping the weapon, preventing a quick draw that Connor doubted the slovenly man would be capable of anyway.

The man went to tap on an already wound-down window.

Jesus, acquire some situational awareness, you fat cunt, thought Connor. There are hundreds of millions of roubles worth of planes in there.

Connor’s assessment of Ibrahim’s language skills proved correct as he listened to the two men exchange in rapid Russian.

The guard gestured towards Connor without looking at him.

Whatever Ibrahim said elicited a burst of gulping laughter from the guard, as both men looked at Connor.

The guard retreated to the gate, punching in a code Connor saw as 7,8,8,4,6; he thought for a moment and realised—PUTIN.

The gate clattered back, and Ibrahim began to drive through.

Ibrahim began, “I just said to him—”

Connor interrupted, “Don’t tell me. I am really emotionally sensitive.”

“Really?”

“No, but you’ll ruin the joke if you explain it to me.”

“Thank you.”

The Englishman noticed that the BAE-125-700 lit up, and its engines started to growl.

They parked in the small, empty car park behind a row of stilted Portakabins.

“Let’s grab our gear,” announced Ibrahim.

As Connor alighted, he glanced at the planes and thought, I am unarmed, and they can take me hundreds of miles away in any direction whether I like it or not.

Ibrahim said, “It’s the aircraft on the left.”

“Yeah, I guessed.”

Ibrahim seemed to pause, as if waiting for Connor to lead.

Connor stood straighter and didn’t move until the Israeli did.

The walk to the aircraft seemed longer as Connor’s spider senses began to tingle.

He slipped his lighter-disguised Kubotan into his left palm—he felt slightly more confident in producing a knockout with his right.

Still, it would be of little to no use in the face of any modern firearm.

He attempted to look into the fishbowl windows of the aircraft, but if anyone was inside, they were not framing themselves.

The former commando decided to stay close to Ibrahim, reckoning on, at the very least, grabbing him if confronted by a pistol.

He entered the hatch with an almost CQB mindset.

Connor rounded the corner into the cabin and exclaimed, “Fuck me, no.”

Khalimov wondered if this was how a small prey animal on the Serengeti must feel—it had occurred to him how much more he needed his paranoid wits about himself than in Syria.

And like a meerkat’s burrow system, this abandoned, desolate aul in the Dagestani mountains provided protection.

Khalimov had organised a rotation for the discreet sentry outpost, and the remnants of a house-to-house tunnel system remained clear enough to use.

A perfect safe house for the next few days.

All his Inghimasi had returned, including the two machine gunners who had engaged the port’s security team.

The Middle East war veteran had expected helicopters and numerous vehicles with sirens blaring to swarm the immediate area of the ambush quicker.

The enemy’s complacency had been a gift from Allah.

Rephidim had told him during the brief that he would need a couple of days after the weapons robbery to convince the Russian authorities the armaments had left the North Caucasus.

Khalimov now sat absorbing the file that Rephidim had previously sent him.

On its receipt, Khalimov, after going through the security portals and procedures to locate the file, had moved it to his unused laptop via a USB transfer.

The Quds officer once again had to admit that Rephidim must have been the king in the game of insurgency and intelligence.

The file contained information layers deep with the prioritisation of the differing pieces of intelligence marked accordingly.

He didn’t want to excite the group unnecessarily so decided to keep it to himself until he had formulated a thorough brief.

The last few days had been difficult. They had switched vehicles not far from the ambush site before driving across Georgia in a cross-country coach.

Finally, they had disembarked at the foot of the border, set fire to the coach and endured a strenuous ten-hour hike in the darkness of night to reach sanctuary.

He now played the card game Tarneeb with Karim Shamil, call sign Komodo, on his team, with Jamal al-Sheikh, his 2IC—second-in-command, and Abu, call sign Hawk, on the other.

Despite playing the game numerous times, they went through the same perfunctory discussion disguised as an argument regarding the rules, specifically the number on which the set ends, which had always been forty-one, though Karim always suggested thirty-one.

Though gambling of any kind was haram—forbidden—in Islam, Khalimov had suggested Allah would find it permissible, as not only did it sharpen their strategic thinking, but they did not play for money, only honour—and the right not to do certain chores.

The others had readily agreed with his assessment.

The other Inghimasi members lounged around reading, writing and drawing.

The ability to amuse oneself during the long lulls in a storm was one of the more overlooked skills a warrior needed to cultivate, and it had taken this team time to acquire it.

This was imperative for this stage.

Even if his team remained undetected, he couldn’t foresee them all surviving the next phase of the operation—if any of them.

Indeed, Rephidim had clarified that their mission was to stop the convoy.

Enough to get the warhead out. Enough to get to get it to Azerbaijan via the Caspian Sea.

When the Holy War was ignited, maybe it would have been best if they had all been martyred here in the Republic of Dagestan.

David Nazzal’s decision to be punctual to a meeting depended not on his schedule but on whether it served a strategic purpose.

In most cases, as with this one, being punctual to a meeting was a sign of respect to the other parties that helped grease the wheels of cooperation.

Whereas the chiefs of the intelligence agencies of other nations might consider a monthly meeting a chore to be endured, in Israel, there was no such thing as a ‘quiet’ month—relatively speaking.

The Shabak chief entered to find the Head of Aman—Brigadier General Eitan Yadlin—already present despite Nazzal’s arriving seven minutes early.

The old soldier stood from the chunky, rustic circular table—the story went that former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin brought it in after reading that King Arthur’s round table encouraged a sense of equality amongst his knights.

Flanked by the two stands with the hanging cone-shaped white and blue flags displaying the Star of David, the general looked the image of nationalism.

Yadlin was affectionately known as Merkava—after the tank that remained the backbone of the IDF’s armoured corps. Nazzal guessed this nickname referenced the military intelligence chief’s physique as much as his aggressive approach to his operations.

“What a fucking month,” rasped the general in Hebrew.

“We both know you welcome the action,” answered the Shin Bet boss as they shook hands.

“Once upon a time, that was true, but I feel the tide is turning, my friend.”

“Nonsense,” exclaimed Nazzal, clapping the shorter man’s shoulders. “You’re strong as a bull.”

“Your penchant for subterfuge is why you are where you are.”

The door opened, and tall, raven-like Naftali Avidan entered.

“Gentlemen,” said the Mossad head as way of acknowledgement.

“Naftali,” answered Nazzal.

Eitan and Naftali, as they always did, simply nodded at one another.

The door opened, and the trio turned to greet the prime minister.

They all sat, Nazzal to the prime minister’s left, facing Avidan.

The prime minister began, “Twelve Druze children and teenagers dead on a soccer field in the Golan Heights. At least forty others injured. Any ideas on who ordered it?”

Naftali answered, “They haven’t claimed responsibility, but it is almost certainly the work of Hezbollah.”

A mild irritation seemed to edge the prime minister’s voice, “I meant who specifically?”

Naftali said, “Nothing confirmed as yet, but a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut named Fuad Shukr will have been behind it.”

The prime minister’s gaze drifted to Nazzal’s, who said, “Our preliminary intelligence concurs with Naftali’s assessment.”

“I do not understand,” said Yadlin. “Why target the Druze community? Surely Hezbollah risk the Druze in Syria and Lebanon turning against them?”

The prime minister shrugged. “Perhaps an indiscriminate rocket? Or perhaps they do not care.”

Naftali said, “Or perhaps they wish to bait us into a strong reaction. Draw our resources away from Gaza.”

The country’s leader said, “Or perhaps they think we will turn a mild-mannered cheek towards them because of Gaza. What is that Shakespearean quote? ‘When the cat is away, the rats will play.’”

Nazzal did not bother to correct the inaccuracy.

Instead, he said, “Sir, we may have an asset close to Shukr that could guarantee his location. Due to Hezbollah not claiming responsibility, which I do not expect, as Eitan pointed out, there will be a strong response. The IDF must be prepared.”

“These animals take kindness as a weakness,” answered the prime minister. “Is there anything else?”

“There is, sir,” announced Naftali, lifting his briefcase onto the table. He thumbed the combination locks until they granted him access. He handed each an identical folder.

Naftali allowed a few minutes to absorb the contents before summarising, “If these documents are to be believed, then the Iranians have a nuclear missile facility in an impenetrable bunker beneath the planned but forever ‘under construction’ Darkhovin Nuclear Power Plant. And they are exceedingly close in finalising nuclear warheads.”

“Without testing?” asked Nazzal, his heart beating faster.

“I agree it seems strange. But perhaps the Russians or the North Koreans conducted the testing.”

A few moments of silence rained before the prime minister snapped, “This cannot happen. Their so-called leader preaches against our existence. Millions of our people would leave—no one wants to live under the threat of annihilation. With our population down, in a generation, our military and security forces will be down—the fall of our nation would happen soon after.”

Yadlin nodded his agreement. “Or they give a warhead to the Houthis, who run it into an Israeli port.”

The prime minister’s right hand massaged his forehead before he looked at Avidan. “Do you think another Stuxnet would be possible?”

Avidan shook his head. “If this intelligence is true, then I am embarrassed to say that we had no idea of it until now.”

“So you’re saying you doubt the veracity of this intelligence?”

“Sceptical, maybe. Dismissive of it, no. The Darkhovin Power Plant has been suspicious in the time it appears to be taking to come online. This would be a reasonable explanation for it. And Darkhovin is close to Iran’s most south-western point—the closest point to us and Saudi Arabia.”

No one spoke for a moment before the prime minister rasped, “I need more substantial intelligence before we move. But I wish to be clear: If the Iranians are near to developing a nuclear missile capability, there are no lengths I will not go to prevent it. If this document is true and cannot be destroyed from the air, I will order a ground assault on the Darkhovin Power Plant. My next meeting will be with the heads of all three IDF branches to draft a plan. Believe me, gentlemen, I hope this information is not true.”

34

Bruce McQuillan stood as Connor entered the cabin.

“Fuck me, no,” the Englishman exclaimed. “I’ve had to shoot, punch, hide and have my insides burned out just to get to this point, and you just swan in on a private plane?”

The older man fought down the wry smile—he felt glad to see his quasi-protégé in good spirits.

And he felt unsure of thinking of him as an apprentice now.

Indeed, with the amount of operations Connor had crammed into these half-dozen years he had been a black operations agent, Bruce surmised that he didn’t hold much more in the way of ‘boots-on-the-ground’ experience.

He asked, “Your insides burned out?”

“I am exaggerating. I’ll tell you later,” replied Connor. “What brings you here?”

“A stipulation for the private plane was that it was for me only, so here I am.”

“What do you mean, here you are? To do what?”

“To help.”

Connor raised his eyebrows. “Nice one. Sugar Ray Leonard making his first comeback, eh?”

Bruce deflected by saying to Ibrahim, “Thank you for your assistance so far.”

Connor and Ibrahim stowed their kits and sat—Connor immediately in front of Bruce and Ibrahim across the short aisle to his right.

Bruce addressed Ibrahim, “Have you had any contact with Raz?”

The plane began to crawl.

Ibrahim shook his head. “He briefed me on your arrival. We still do not have a fixed ambush location or a time.”

Bruce said, “It’s happening tomorrow evening. The rendition of Beni Mizrahi produced a localised area. I’ve had a look at it. I think I know where the strike point will be. We’ll use the flight to cross-reference.”

Connor asked, “How many are there in this battle-hardened, armed-to-the-teeth, ‘I-get-seventy-two-virgins-if-I-die-in-combat-so-not-bothered’ militant group?”

“I suspect up to a dozen,” said the Scotsman.

“Do we have any help?” asked Connor.

“Not directly,” answered Bruce. “But I may have a trick up my sleeve regarding the FSB.”

“What about arms and kit?”

Bruce answered, “We’ve been given access to a weapons and equipment cache around twenty kilometres west of the village of Kasumkent—relatively flat, at least by Dagestan standards. But the cache is around three hundred miles from the target area.”

The plane sped along the runway before pulling into the air.

Once settled in the sky, Connor said to Bruce, “Ibra said that the idea the Iranians have nuclear weapons is a Russian lie.”

“We can only hope that is true,” said Bruce.

Connor remembered reading a quote by Carl Sagan and repeated it the best he could, “‘A nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.’”

Khalimov had now formulated a thorough plan of action, and now was the time to brief his men.

He wondered if there would ever be a time when his fighting days ended. He often thought about what he would do. Perhaps run a training camp? However, they attracted drone strikes like moths to a flame.

Many afternoons had been spent pondering whether he could pick up a new profession, but he doubted he had the energy over a reasonable timespan to get as good as he was at this.

Another reason why he hadn’t manifested his thoughts into action was he carried a sense of being on borrowed time.

A while back, the embers of a nickname threatened to become stuck to him; Alkhalid—The Immortal—was something he knew could invite great complacency, and a drove of soft-minded Jihadists would clamour to join him.

Not to mention, the Western and Sunni intelligence agencies loved hunting down myths.

It dawned on him then that there would be no hiding his status after this operation—the rumours would spread like a fire through a bone-dry forest.

If Martyrdom was to be his destiny, then so be it, but he liked the idea of dying in a warm bed surrounded by family—Inshallah.

Connor’s eyes flicked towards Bruce as he waited for him on the tarmac at the bottom of the plane’s steps.

He remembered the first proper mission the Scotsman had taken him on around half a dozen years ago. They had broken into the Cheshire home of one Abeeb Zahid, an international money launderer whose clients included a Saudi al-Qaeda financier.

Connor had assassinated Zahid with a hammer in keeping with a burglary gone wrong.

Compared to the operations Connor had conducted since, it was tame, but he had been grateful that the old man had accompanied him.

Now, Connor had to disguise his unease when Bruce had told him he’d be putting his boots on the ground.

In the last half-decade, though the former SAS soldier had gotten his hands dirty, he had essentially been running things behind the scenes operationally and politically.

His table-hard edges had softened a little, and his knee had been reconstructed.

Connor’s feelings surprised him—a few years ago, he would never have imagined there would be a time that he would be reticent of Bruce’s being on the ground with him.

Connor had read about Alexander the Great’s elite unit known as the Argyraspides—translated as the Silver Shields.

After Alexander had died in 323 BC, the crack soldiers fought for Eumenes as the Argead dynasty leader.

By the time the Wars of the Diadochi came around, it was said not one of the Silver Shields was below the age of sixty, but due to their decades of being battle-hardened as an elite unit, they remained the most feared.

This was proven during their ferocious performance during the Battle of Gabiene.

Connor thought of Bruce when he had studied this piece of history, as the older man also possessed decades at the sharp end.

However, Connor admired the apparent relentless discipline of athletes like Kobe Bryant, Cristiano Ronaldo, George Saint Pierre, Floyd Mayweather and Bernard Hopkins.

He had mirrored this with the almost daily practice of studying the material he would request from Jaime regarding the cyber genius’s projections on global hotspots, various dangerous organisations and numerous languages.

He’d had both physical and simulated shooting ranges created beneath his house to improve and sharpen his gunplay.

He stretched, strength trained, hit the heavy bag and habitually visited clubs for grappling sessions.

And Connor doubted Bruce would have the time for all that even if he had the inclination and energy.

Bruce finished talking with one of the crew members and made his way down the steps carrying the kit bag Jaime had designed to resemble a sports holdall.

When Bruce stepped off and reached him, he dumped the bag at his feet and slid a hand inside his jacket.

He pulled out what looked to be a kind of passport with a green cover and handed it to Connor.

“This is a single-entry Russian work visa. Not that it’s likely to matter, but it’s valid for ninety days.”

Connor flicked it open to see a replication of his passport photo and date of birth framed by a host of words in Cyrillic.

Bruce continued, “I’ve had Jaime send you a detailed legend. Granted, it’s not ideal for you to learn while in the country, but essentially, we are outside foreign experts in oil and gas, and Ibrahim is a project manager from Gazprom. The documentation should pass the inspections of all but the most suspicious and thorough of police and allow us to travel freely around the Caucasus.”

Connor asked, “What if they call it in to check?”

“Luckily, Russia hasn’t completely lost its communist inefficiency in certain areas, and there is a known lag time between having it issued and it coming on fully online in all Russian territories. If a cop calls through, the status will come back pending, but they might concede that the system hasn’t updated yet.”

“How did you get them so fast?”

“I had to pull a favour.”

Connor wasn’t going to press the issue except that Bruce had told him on their first mission that, as the operative, he had every right to question anything regarding the mission.

Bruce had also told him to trust no one, not even him.

“Who has given you the favour?”

Bruce glanced at him and answered, “The former head of the SVR, Alexey Orlov.”

Connor’s forehead scrunched. “Holy fuck, how did you convince him? And how can you trust him?”

“His predecessor owes me. And he owes his predecessor,” said Bruce. “And I made him an offer he did not want to refuse.”

Before Connor could ask for clarification, the black Land Rover arrived with near-blinding lights.

Out of a natural deference, Connor slid into the back seat after he and Bruce put their gear in.

Ibrahim pulled the Land Rover away, saying, “This journey will be approximately four hours. I have planned the route to avoid known checkpoint locations, but I cannot be sure of all of them.”

Connor opened his phone and found the file that Jaime had sent.

This was something new—a fully constructed ‘legend’ had not been necessary for him in almost all other operations.

All dangerous places in the world had a criminal element. Connor’s cover stories mostly revolved around him and his family’s taking advantage of it.

And often, they did take advantage of it. The shipments from Odessa had proved highly lucrative. The Japanese car imports had come about when Connor had been sent to Japan and, as a result, formed a relationship with a surging Japanese-owned company called Okada Engineering and its shadowy protectors, the Gādian Yakuza.

He pondered whether the family business would have grown as much as it had without his work with The Chameleon Project.

Tom had a broad, sharp business acumen and a healthy respect within the UK criminal underworld.

The Calabrian Mafia—’Ndrangheta—due to its size and moving parts, didn’t have an overruling boss, but the closest they had to a Capo dei Capi was an old man named Italo Mauro.

And Mauro had once told Connor that a good mafia don needed the triumvirate of the ability to make money, organise and be ruthless—and Tom Ryder had all three.

However, Tom was not ambitious for the sake of it—he had expressed a reluctance to expand too quickly as, in his words, it was “…too difficult to vet for potential grasses and undercovers at entry level if you’re too big.”

In that sense, Connor still didn’t know how big The Chameleon Project was, the manpower it had at its disposal, the funds and where it had influence.

And he would never embarrass himself by asking either Bruce or Ciara just to satisfy his curiosity—it would break the ‘need-to-know’ law.

Connor decided to make a start on memorising his legend.

His in-country name was now Connor White, and he had a degree in geology from Aberdeen.

He was currently an employee of K-Geo, assisting his head of department, Bruce Hamilton.

There were sub-files on his fictional family background, basic geology concepts, and some paragraphs to be learnt by rote to either bamboozle the uninitiated or convince the initiated of his expertise, at least for a while.

Another file contained information on Dagestan itself, including the terrain, approximate number of ethnicities, languages spoken, larger cities, history and current events.

Not much in the file was new to Connor—he remembered when first learning about Dagestan—or the Republic of Dagestan, as it was now known—with over thirty ethnic groups and eighty-one nationalities, it was one of the most diverse places in the world.

Twelve of those ethnic groups formed over one percentage of the total population.

Connor asked, “Ibrahim, what’s your cover?”

“I am a business prospector for CompletePetro based in Turkey. I have been in contractual meetings regarding potentially huge oil resources found in South Ossetia.”

“I see,” said Connor. “And due to South Ossetia being a disputed territory and the financial incentive these resources are said to have, you have been given the free run of both Georgia and the North Caucasus?”

“That’s an accurate observation. Neither party wants to be seen as giving me any friction in fear that the rights might go to the other. I am in no doubt that should my leanings be towards the Georgians, the Russians will take me away to strongly persuade me otherwise.”

Though Connor knew CompletePetro to be a real company, he thought it was a given the discovery of a new abundance of natural resources to be untrue or at least massively exaggerated. Not that it was any of his business.

Bruce said, “Is there any concern that this potential deal might spark between Russia and Georgia?”

The thought had also occurred to Connor. Back in 1990, South Ossetia declared its independence from Georgia. Hostilities ignited into the South Ossetia war, waged between 1991 and 1992.

This ended with an uneasy ceasefire, and the conflict was frozen until the mid-2000s when it again caught alight, first in 2004 and finally in 2008 when Russian forces invaded Georgia under the guise of a peacekeeping operation.

Since, though South Ossetia remained reliant on Russia for its security and economic aid, it had not been fully absorbed into the Russian Federation despite the prospect being raised several times in the intervening years.

Ibrahim answered, “It is unspoken that the Georgians know they won’t be the primary beneficiaries of it. But I’ve made them aware that access through Georgian territory to distribute via the Black Sea would benefit CompletePetro—they are negotiating for a percentage.”

The level of thought into the cover story and Ibrahim’s adherence to the lie impressed Connor.

He studied his own legend for half an hour before taking the opportunity to nap.

Connor had a theory that first developed from basic training in that the more sleep-deprived a person was, the quicker the brain worked to restore itself when sleeping.

His mind dissolved into a dream of Grace massaging his head in bed.

35

Khalimov stood at the head of a giant unfurled map of a five hundred by five hundred metre area around a kilometre north of Tarumovsky region in Northernmost Dagestan.

When Rephidim gave Khalimov the rough strike area, the Iranian obtained the relevant maps, marker counters and a laser pointer.

Khalimov understood why a digital file and projector hadn’t been feasible and welcomed this back-to-basics method.

“Our forces will be divided into two. This time, Komodo will lead the ambush team and I the overwatch team. We have four days to prepare, travel to the area and set up.”

He systematically went through all the fi halas—which roughly translated to ‘in the event of’. He knew that in the British infantry, these were known as Actions On—premeditated actions to be carried out in the event of various situations that, though not desired, could reasonably occur.

Such fi halas included getting lost, failing communications, being discovered before the operation was initiated, enemy forces firing upon them, one of them being injured both before or during any gunfire, and a host of others.

After he finished his orders, he opened the floor for questions.

He already guessed the first salvo when Komodo asked, “How will my fariq escape if we are picked up by unfriendly air support.”

“There is no air support other than the helicopter that will make the final extraction,” he said. “Besides, if an errant aircraft attempts to engage, we have the Starstreak, its riding guidance system and multiple munitions.”

Khalimov had overstated the missile launcher’s simplicity of use.

A man of average intelligence and the elementary instruction could hit a stationary target—like a stopped vehicle.

However, becoming proficient could take several days of team practice, especially in reloading a fresh missile.

The best Khalimov had been able to do was a day of dry firing in a forest not far from the aul.

Khalimov wasn’t a naïve man—if a Russian helicopter crew was tasked to extract the bomb after Khalimov’s men had ambushed the convoy, then would the said gunship have orders to annihilate them?

Surely, they would consider his men to be too many in on the conspiracy for it to remain watertight.

Then he remembered how the world had been convinced that a global pandemic had been caused by a Chinese man eating a bat.

Disinformation would muddy the waters enough that no one would truly know the truth—and no one was particularly interested as long as they were entertained.

He banked on his team being too valuable to Rephidim.

Khalimov asked, “Any more questions?”

No one had.

“I have some for you.”

He went around the team asking questions, who answered all correctly until he came to Dzhokar Kadyrov—Komodo’s number two, his closest friend and ally.

“Point on the map the line after which we go to radio silence except in an emergency?”

Kadyrov hesitated before almost spluttering, “I… I am not certain.”

Khalimov drilled him with a cold stare before asking, “What is the third alternate frequency?”

Kadyrov closed his eyes as if in recall before resignedly declaring, “I missed that.”

“If you missed it, why did you not ask when I asked if there were any questions?”

“I… I know everything that I have to know.”

Khalimov stood straight and looked around before commanding, “We are about to step into the reflection of Jahannam. And a team is only as strong as its weakest link. Kadyrov, make naked your back for the purification of your ill-discipline.”

A silence bladed through the room in swirls.

Under Sharia law, lashes came under Hudud—prescribed punishments mandated by Allah for certain offences. These Hudud offences and punishments included the stoning of a married adulterer and the death penalty for apostasy.

However, the Shura of Islamic State had decreed that the commander of any team, while conducting operations of Jihad, was given the right of acting Qadi—judge—and therefore Tazir—discretion—to punish crimes for which no punishment had been already outlined in the Quran or the Hadith—Islamic oral tradition.

Several years ago, under Khalimov’s prompting, al-Baghdadi had the then-Shura Council rule that “a lack of spirit in the preparation and execution of Jihad was to be considered a crime.”

Not once since the council had decreed the powers of Qadi to a Jihadi commander had Khalimov resorted to it. He had heard of many other commanders having done so, but he felt that their reliance on it was a compensation for a lack of respect amongst their men.

However, Khalimov had felt the simmer of arrogant animosity from Karim, the Komodo, and Mohammed, the Caracal, for a while now and couldn’t allow any disobedience to creep in at this crucial stage.

Kadyrov shakily stood before Komodo, who exclaimed, “Let me discipline him, Qayid.”

“Oh, you will, Karim,” said Khalimov. “Here and now. Thirty on bare flesh. Unfortunately, we do not have a Quran.”

Tension stretched the quiet.

In some instances, under Sharia, the flogger might hold a copy of the Quran under his arm to limit the range of motion and lessen the power.

And it was not customary for the blows to land directly on the skin.

Khalimov hated the hypocrisy of the West—their ‘human rights’ activists complained about the barbarism of lashes and yet thought nothing of sending him to a criminal university called prison, which the law-abiding citizens pay for.

To Khalimov, lashes were far more humane and made more sense.

He stared the defiance out of Karim’s eyes.

Both he and Kadyrov rose unsteadily under the expectant eyes of the rest.

To show excessive reluctance now would be a stain on their honour, a shameful thing amongst Muslim men, and a potentially deadly one amongst Jihadists.

Kadyrov began to disrobe.

He ensured the tight fastening of his linen trousers above his navel—not to lessen the hurt of the blows but because Kadyrov believed, as did many other Muslims, that the navel and knee was ‘awrah to everyone but a wife or a concubine.

Khalimov knelt and reached into his black rucksack to answer Karim’s question a moment before he asked it.

“What should I use?”

Khalimov tossed him a hardened, thick cylinder with a spike on one end.

“Turn it upside down and twist the top.”

Karim did so and out slid three thin, tightly interwoven steel cables of a hundred centimetres, nibbed at the end.

Rephidim had given him this at the motorcycle shop.

This hardened spiked handle was sold to serve as a window breaker in the event of extracting a person from a crashed vehicle—the stinger whip a self-defence weapon not illegal in Russia when sold in this form.

Karim stared at it as if being charmed by a snake.

He looked at Khalimov, open-mouthed, but closed it again.

The usual canes used in Hudud lashings were made of rattan vine timber.

“Begin,” commanded Khalimov.

Karim turned woodenly. Keeping his elbow tight to his side as decreed by Sharia law, his first strike caused an arching to Kadyrov’s back, who hadn’t seen what he was being struck with.

Khalimov knew that though Karim’s first stroke had been stiff, he had held back.

He barked, “For each untrue stroke, I will personally give him five.”

Khalimov had expected a look of disdain—instead, he saw the arrogance vacuum from Karim’s eyes.

The successive strokes leapt into the skin like viper bites.

Karim spread the strokes as much as he could over the small section of the back—a common tactic to shorten the healing time for the recipient.

Enraged lines of bright red appeared.

The first sound of pain came after the eleventh—a growl.

Then, a low moan after the seventeenth.

The streaks began to glisten.

A cry on the twenty-third mirrored the blood tears from the stripes.

The knees buckled on the twenty-seventh.

“Let me stand, I beg you,” cried Kadyrov.

Khalimov nodded on Karim’s eyes, enquiring for his permission.

Kadyrov manfully stood and took the three remaining in silence.

The rest of the men looked on approvingly.

Khalimov barked to him, “Brother, come to me.”

Kadyrov did so—and looked at Khalimov like a dog looks at its owner.

Khalimov said, “You have taken the purification of your transgressions like a man under our warrior law. We will never speak of this again. Mawlavi will apply the special ointment to your back.”

Kadyrov bowed his head. “Yes, Qayid.”

Mawlavi, the leading combat medic, took the gingerly walking Kadyrov away.

Khalimov extended his hand, and Karim handed him the stinger whip.

Khalimov asked him, “Why did you offer to discipline Kadyrov yourself?”

Karim responded with a hint of pride, “He is under my direct charge—it should be my responsibility.”

“If it was your responsibility, then why did you not offer yourself for the punishment?”

Karim’s nostrils flared as his jaw slackened.

“I… I thought the punishment was for his own absolution.”

“You just said it was your responsibility?”

“I said his discipline was.”

“So, his lack of discipline was your responsibility!” shouted Khalimov.

“Yes, Qayid.”

“Cowardice cannot be tolerated. Turn around. Bare your upper back.”

When Karim stood with frog-like eyes, Khalimov roared, “Now!”

Karim tore off his tunic as if flames licked it before turning around.

Khalimov did not attempt to spread the strokes.

He beat Karim until whimpering on his knees, his back awash with blood.

When Karim cried out for mercy, Khalimov gave him two more strokes before stepping back.

The silence from the others made the sobbing seem louder.

Khalimov knew he had made Karim useless as a soldier, let alone a combat team leader.

But Karim could be useful as a tool.

Khalimov knelt and unzipped the pouch beneath the top of his rucksack.

He used clear plastic bags to waterproof his clothes and remove litter when operating in the field.

The larger ones could fit a full tunic and trousers—and also a head.

“Pin him,” he commanded.

The men leapt on Karim like hyenas on a carcass.

“For the love of Allah, no. Qayid, no, I be—”

The plastic bag ramming over his head cut off his shrieking protest.

Khalimov squeezed his knees against the writhing ribcage as he scrunched his fist at the base of Karim’s head. He pressed down to fix Karim’s forehead to the floor.

Realising his underling might scrape a hole in the bag, he switched to pulling the head up.

Karim’s head torqued like a Kangal Shepherd dog.

The fire of his death struggle began to wane—before simmering into embers and finally fizzling out.

Khalimov kept the bag on for a while longer before resting the head on the ground and removing the bag.

Khalimov rose, and the others looked at him with what he knew to be fear.

Like an Imam preaching, he said, “Questioning my plans is encouraged. Presenting an idea that might go against my own is encouraged.  Not giving your full spirit to this Jihad is a transgression. Plotting against my leadership is haram. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Qayid,” they chorused.

“Good. Take your shovels and bury him outside.”

They busied themselves in carrying out his orders.

Bruce’s eyes flicked to the rear-view mirror a few minutes after the light from Connor’s phone disappeared.

He saw the Englishman demonstrating the soldier’s skill of snatching sleep in suboptimal conditions.

He’d have developed this ability during his Royal Marine basic training, as had Bruce as a Parachute Regiment recruit.

He looked away and internalised the mist of approval he felt towards Connor.

He remembered when he first met the Yorkite—a smashing and, at the time, indiscriminate sledgehammer. Now, he reminded McQuillan of a Muramasa katana blade.

He had seen one in a Japanese museum years ago and read the story behind them.

Originally regarded as the most exquisitely sharp and finest blades and therefore favoured by the sixteenth-century shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, a series of sinister incidents involving the swords led them to be regarded as yōtō—Wicked Katana—and the bringers of bad luck.

Yōtō might have been an apt description for Connor—Bruce had known of the younger man’s penchant for torturing those he ensnared, believing them to be, in his words, “…evil and unlikely to rehabilitate.”

Bruce tolerated it, knowing that it had incentivised his premier agent. The surreal aspect to it was that outside of witnessing him commit these acts, a person would never guess him to have such a thirst.

And a side of Bruce understood—Ciara had once told him that Connor’s thinking had been “…killing them isn’t a punishment—they might get hit by a bus.”

Bruce asked Ibrahim, “Is this operation your first time here?”

Ibrahim looked at him briefly. “I came over several years ago.”

“Not just here,” said Bruce. “But to Crimea, too.”

“What makes you say that?”

Bruce didn’t answer him directly; instead, he said, “You came over after Russia’s ‘Little Green Men’ annexed Crimea after the Euromaidan revolution.”

Ibrahim took a moment to answer before saying, “You and my boss must be close if he’s told you something like that.”

“We are close, but he didn’t tell me,” said Bruce. “I am professionally impressed by how you, as an Israeli Jew, were able to embed yourself in Povernuto.”

Ibrahim gave an ambiguous nod. “It took a lot of risk and patience.”

“That and you can speak Arabic fluently.”

“That’s right.”

“When did you convert?”

“Convert to what? Mossad or Judaism?”

“Both.”

Bruce’s eyes flicked to the rear-view to see Connor awake and had silently straightened himself.

“My father was high in the Palestinian Authority. He remained steadfast to the people’s cause even through Arafat’s greed. He warned that HAMAS’s thirst for Jewish blood would hold down the Gazan people. When they got into power, my father could not believe it—for if he had, he would have made our escape sooner. Be it as it may, he tried before they came for him in the house. We might have made it, but one of our neighbours identified our vehicle to the HAMAS vampires to further their standing. The tyres and the engine block were shot out, and they dragged him, my mother, my sister and me out down an alley. As they executed them, I bit the wrist of the one holding me, he let go, and I ran into the street.”

Bruce’s heart rate ratcheted as he recognised the story.

Ibrahim continued the monologue like he’d never told it before, “I was chased, and they began to fire at me. I was grabbed by a masked man, who then fired back. He threw me onto his shoulder, but instead of taking me to my death, he ran in the opposite direction. He was a Shabak agent. Back then, with so many masked HAMAS members on the street in celebration of the election, Israeli agents would pose as them. This agent not only risked his life but risked the mission to save me.”

Bruce knew it was a true story and asked, “I don’t suppose you ever thought that he might have spotted a professional opportunity in you when he saved you?”

Bruce became intensely aware of Connor when he said it.

“I do not think that would have been his first thought when he snatched me under fire.”

“Of course,” Bruce agreed.

“The man knew I would be fostered into the West Bank. Remember, no one knew if HAMAS would also gain leadership there. So he had his sister and her husband adopt me.”

“So, Raz isn’t your boss—he’s your uncle.”

Connor’s voice murmured, “Holy fuck.”

Bruce said, “And you couldn’t work Gaza or the West Bank in case you were recognised.”

Ibrahim smiled. “Uncle Raz didn’t want me to work for the military or Israeli intelligence. He always drilled into me the value of education. I remember him telling me that ‘…following your passion is bullshit. You follow what makes you money and get good at it—when you’re good at something that makes you money, then voilà, you find you are ‘passionate’ about it.’”

“And what would make money is an understanding of the energy sector?”

“Yes. I studied at the University of Tehran.”

“It seems certain people had other ideas for you.”

“Yes.”

Connor spoke, “If Raz Sharir didn’t want you to work for the military or any intelligence service, then why did he allow you to go to Uni in Iran?”

“The director—this current one—was the deputy director back then and convinced my father of his love of Israel.”

Connor spoke, “He insinuated that your dad might have an accident if he didn’t allow you to be inducted.”

Ibrahim chuckled. “I don’t think it was that dramatic. I think it was more a carrot-and-stick approach towards his career. My uncle was elevated to the head of his current unit not long before I was due to graduate.”

“He decided it best you work for him than other units in Mossad.”

“No,” said Ibrahim. “I am a deep-cover asset for Mossad as an energy consultant. That is how I can move around other countries and access places like Georgian ports.”

Connor said, “And Tatar dissent meetings back in Crimea half a decade ago. It was you that helped supply the Povernuto all those years ago.”

“When did you recognise me,” asked Ibrahim.

“I thought I knew you when you met me at the port—I didn’t know where from until now,” said Connor. “If your unit hasn’t sent you, why did you come?”

Ibrahim said, “My adoptive uncle needed my help, and I owe him a debt—whether he is right or wrong.”

Listening to Ibrahim speak had consolidated Connor’s opinion that there were levels to this game and that he might not be at the top of it.

Connor didn’t practice false modesty—he knew he had survived many situations that would have killed even a highly competent agent.

However, he hadn’t discounted luck’s role in sending him various angels in different guises.

Bruce had shot dead a Makar Gorokhov, saving Connor from literally being beaten to death.

It had occurred thrice since then.

Ciara Robson had rescued him from a mauling from a pack of Asian gangsters in Birmingham, an Xander Voitenko had saved him from being kicked to death by Ukrainian terrorists in Crimea, and Carlo Andaloro had assisted him in defeating in unarmed combat Makar’s younger, harder, ‘augmented’ brother, Mikhail Gorokhov in Japan.

Carlo had also prevented his being torn up by Black Axe mobsters in Castel Volturno, Italy.

He realised then that he missed the crazy former Legionnaire more than he thought.

He remembered Deadpool interviewing potential recruits for his new ‘X-Force’ team, and one of the recruits claimed her special power was ‘Good Luck’.

Connor had been tempted to think he might have the same power. He would harshly dismiss it for fright of jinxing it.

However, it sounded as if Ibrahim had survived mainly by his own initiative.

Connor picked out the first sign for Kasumkent.

He couldn’t see buildings other than bungalows floating in a sea of green forest with this main road cutting through them.

The Dagestani mountains rolled from sharp to blurry in the background. Though Connor remained grateful that he didn’t have to yomp through them, he had to admit that these didn’t look quite as foreboding as some of the monstrosities he’d encountered in the Yukon.

That said, though generally the Dagestani Mountain ranges stood on average around a kilometre and a half lower than the Yukon Ranges and St Elias Mountain, Connor knew that these Goras—a Slavic word for heap, hill or mountain—were not the highest Dagestan had to offer.

As the darkness began to shimmer in, so did the cold.

Connor knew that any idiot could be cold; his ego wouldn’t allow him to ask Ibrahim for the heating to be turned up, so he crept tighter into his winter jacket.

After a few minutes, it gladdened him when the hardy Scot pointed to the heater before turning it up after Ibrahim nodded.

Within minutes, the Land Rover cleared the town and cut onto a more agricultural track shortly after.

It came to a halt beneath a canopy of Scots pine.

Through the trees, Connor could make out a shack-like building of different coloured bricks with a corrugated tin roof. It reminded Connor of some of the empty buildings found on UK military training areas.

Ibrahim killed the engine, reached under his seat and produced three yellow walkie-talkies.

“I couldn’t have anything resembling military hardware in the vehicle, hence why we are here.”

“Understood, here,” said Bruce, producing three watches. “The settings on those include both GLONASS and GPS. You can set waypoints and routes.”

Bruce gave them both a demonstration that took a few minutes before setting a grid for an Emergency Rendezvous—ERV.

Finally, he said, “I’ll check out the cache. If it has been discovered, the FSB might have put a concealed overwatch on it.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Connor.

“No,” said Bruce. “I’ll take Ibrahim. Connor, move into the front seat. If there is gunfire and no communication over the net, then leave.”

The implication fell on Connor—if Ibrahim were in on any ambush, even an arresting one, Bruce would attempt to facilitate Connor’s escape.

Ibrahim nodded and asked, “How long are you guessing this will take?”

“Just over fifteen minutes there. Checking should take no longer than three. I like to take a different route back out of habit, which should take nearer to ten.”

“Wait, it’s not that building I can see there through the trees?” asked Connor.

“No, it’s much deeper in.”

Of course, thought Connor, as it would make sense that Bruce wouldn’t stop close to the target.

He asked, “You taking a torch?”

As a response, Bruce took out what Connor thought looked like a dark lightsabre from his pocket. Ibrahim asked, “From which direction will we be approaching back?”

“Front passenger side,” said Bruce before turning to Connor. “We’ll flash the light twice from around twenty metres out if, for whatever reason, we can’t raise comms.”

That Ibrahim allowed Bruce to dictate the TTPs—Tactics, Techniques and Procedures—without rancour, told Connor that Raz Sharir must have thoroughly briefed him on Bruce’s in-field credentials.

“OK,” said Connor.

“Let’s go,” said Bruce.

All three men alighted. Connor got into the driver’s seat and watched the two fade into the dark wood away from the building he had observed.

Despite the cold, Connor cracked down all the windows a half inch to hear.

Connor didn’t hate much—he was practised in reframing most situations in a positive light. He remembered sparring with a boxer from a visiting club whilst a youngster.

The stocky stranger had taken less than a round to time Connor’s typically effective jab with hard right-hand counters.

Connor had eventually drawn the right hands with feints before firing in his own counters, but not before the visitor had caught him several times on the way to ‘winning’ the spar overall.

He had burned with embarrassment, but on regaling his father the story, his dad said, “That’s the whole point of training, especially sparring with different lads—so you don’t have to learn it more painfully in a match. You should thank that lad and remember you can always double your jab.”

Still, he thought there came a point where one could be too philosophical about these things, and he couldn’t see the good in having to stay still in the cold.

36

Bruce, though navigating, remained a half a pace behind Ibrahim as they stalked through the forest.

This way, Ibrahim remained in his sight at all times, and he remained in his.

Not that the agent had behaved in a manner that warranted Bruce’s mistrust—only, it had been over a quarter of a century now that the former SAS soldier hadn’t ever professionally trusted a person unless necessary.

And though he trusted Connor, Ciara and Jaime, he still put in measures as if he didn’t.

He had Jaime, even now, occasionally hack the pair’s computer systems and ‘work’ phones.

There had never been anything to suggest that they had been ‘turned’ by any foreign or domestic agent.

It had pleased him that approximately seventy per cent of each’s screen time could be attributed to their professional capacity, with both going out of their way to better themselves in their roles.

Jaime had uncovered that Ciara had probably slept with the CSIS’s Foreign Relations Officer Philip Marr a few months ago in Paris.

Despite the title, Marr also ran a clandestine unit not dissimilar to The Chameleon Project.

And judging by the emails, though surprisingly restrained, he seemed keen for an encore.

This turn of events didn’t unduly worry Bruce; despite Marr being highly versed in deception and patriotic, the Scotsman felt it was better the devil you know.

Jaime sheepishly told him that she had developed a penchant for CNC—consensual non-consent—pornography. Whilst Jaime had shown surprise at this, given her dominant nature, Bruce understood it to be a counterbalance to that side of her personality.

The only thing concerning Connor he found to be a potential cause for concern was that he had browsed a few articles on the effects of a father’s absence on a child.

Though Bruce knew early on that the Yorkshireman possessed a natural aptitude for this type of work, it had pleasantly surprised the Scotsman how sharp and formidable an agent he had evolved into.

The truth was, he didn’t want to lose him. However, Bruce acknowledged that he couldn’t quite empathise with Reed’s apparent predicament due to his own lack of known children.

But then, maybe he could.

His own father had been absent for long stretches during his childhood on various humanitarian missions worldwide.

Bruce, even now, hadn’t felt that it had unduly affected him directly. His dad had regularly written to them all.

However, he hadn’t been on hand to observe and manage his mum’s bipolar disorder. And when he was killed in Lebanon, she had spiralled to suicide.

Ibrahim impressed him with how he quietly moved through the wooded darkness, using his feet to sweep out the debris as he went.

Bruce had been taught this, amongst other modes of movement, in his infantry training in the eighties.

For the first time in years, he had recently been to the cinema to watch ‘Dune: Part Two’. After her subtle hints on watching the first instalment within the apartment, he had taken Adriana and thought the ‘sand walk’ resembled the ‘ghost walk’.

He pushed away the idyllic thoughts of Adriana.

Glimpses of a stone building with a corrugated tin roof peeked through the trees.

Bruce began to concentrate on his senses even more—he remained thankful for his strict adherence to ear defenders on firing ranges and the avoidance of regular loud music.

The stone building rolled up before them, with the black-trimmed, yellow triangular signs depicting an electric shock casualty.

Bruce whispered, “Let’s conduct a perimeter check.”

Ibrahim nodded.

They crept around the rocky encirclement, stopping to listen every so often. After a handful of minutes, Bruce led them to the heavy, wooden door gnarled by the elements.

Bruce took out a multifunction flashlight with a narrow beam and four-colour filter. The narrow red light skirted the bottom of the door.

Bruce checked the arrangement of the stones, as per Alexey Orlov’s brief, to ensure they had not been disturbed—though he recognised it to be a moot point if the former SVR chief had set him up.

Satisfied, Bruce took out a set of keys to undo the three locks.

Once inside and the door closed, he flicked on the lights.

In contrast to its outward appearance, the inside looked like a Western apartment.

They walked on a floor of square stones resembling tiles. The walls were painted what Bruce would describe as a ‘puke-like’ green, with some catching the light switches.

“Not what I was expecting,” said Ibrahim.

Bruce answered, “I like the hidden-in-plain-sight methodology, though.”

He led Ibrahim to another room that struck Bruce as a little surreal, the floors covered in richly textured rugs of red and gold patterning.

However, the wallpaper held photographic images of outer space, giving the impression they now floated amongst an asteroid shower.

Bruce pulled up one of the rugs and slid up a cut-out of the flooring to reveal a larger version of the TSA rotary locking system found on suitcases.

This one required the matching of seven numbers.

He spun the wheels into the access code before lifting a three-by-two-foot section from the floor to reveal a stairway covered in rubberised grip matting.

Ibrahim followed him down into what first appeared to be a beer cellar.

The Quercus Robur oak wood barrels had half a dozen black steel bands wrapped around the bilges—the centre bulges that aided them in being rolled.

He lifted the iron handle atop in a circular groove and turned it in a set sequence before lifting off the whole lid.

The Scotsman pulled out a modern AK-74, all metallic, unlike its polymer and laminate wood predecessor.

Ibrahim asked, “A little basic for an SVR weapons cache, isn’t it?”

“It’s for false flag operations where they can blame the Ukrainians,” answered Bruce. “My contact told me a lot of Ukrainians prefer to pick the older 74s off dead Russians than the AK-12s. He didn’t tell me why.”

“Better the devil you know, maybe?”

“Maybe.”

“Not that it matters now, but can you trust your contact?”

“You’re right.” Bruce smiled. “It doesn’t matter now.”

He laid the three rifles out on the counter before reaching back into the barrel.

Then he lay a Makarov beside each AK-74. Each pistol had a rosewood pistol grip with a five-point icon on them.

Ibrahim said, “Surprised the Ukrainians still used the Makarovs with a Soviet Star on them.”

“Didn’t think they would care as long as it goes bang and people drop dead.”

Based on the GermanWalther PP, the Makarov had been called ‘the AK-47 of the pistol world’ due to its reliability, and Bruce had fired one several times—a touch heavy with the calibre on the marginal side, and they were easy to carry.

With handguns in this line of work, reliability was king, calibre the queen, ease of use and carriage the prince.

With pistols being deployed at short ranges, accuracy wasn’t as prized as it would be with a rifle. Like the differences between pool and snooker, one could only miss by so much unless inept.

Next came three sets of olive Russian belt webbing and the simple pistol holsters. Bruce could see the pouches for the grenades, first aid kit and spare magazines—eight rifles and four pistols.

Bruce pulled out the twelve Russian F1 anti-personnel grenades; olive in colour, with a notched jacket, the F-1’s nickname was limonka—little lemon—due to its size and shape.

An SVD Dragunov sniper rifle constituted the last of the weapon systems, with a PSO-1 optical sight mounted on it.

When Ibrahim pulled out a trio of IR illuminator Russian night vision goggles, he said with disdain, “Better than nothing.”

Bruce then pulled out various other kit like a magician from a seemingly bottomless top hat, including digital cam daysacks—military backpacks—balaclavas, Cyalume glow sticks and warm clothes.

The Scotsman ignored the three R-187 Azart handheld tactical radios.

He had brought over from the UK three tactical PRRs—Personal Role Radios—manufactured by Verbatim Cyber Securities as he couldn’t trust any radio obtained through Orlov not to be monitored.

Bruce said, “Pack your webbing and daysack. I’ll do Connor’s.”

The former special forces operator packed Connor’s in the same manner as his own.

The two men then donned their respective webbing, adjusting the straps to fit. The Mossad agent passed the Scotsman the roll of green tape and scissors, and they both set about taping up the loose straps.

Ibrahim looked at him and said, “How good is he?”

Bruce smiled. “Do you watch football?”

“I do.”

“If he were a footballer, he’d walk into Real Madrid.”

Ibrahim gave him a nasal exhale of amusement. “So you watch football.”

“Just this year. It was a long time before that.”

They packed away everything and made their way out, Ibrahim relocking everything as they went.

They split Connor’s kit between them, Bruce carrying the Dragunov, spare webbing and daysack in either hand, with Ibrahim carrying the spare AK-74 and Makarov.

They curved around and stopped before Bruce used his flashlight to alert Connor.

On nearing the window, Bruce called out, “You might as well get out and adjust the webbing.”

Connor got out and did so before saying, “I’ll tape up the straps in the vehicle.”

He checked the pouches and asked Ibrahim, “What? No trouser twists?”

“What are trouser twists?”

“Take no notice, Ibrahim,” said Bruce.

Connor’s head snapped to his left like an English pointer dog-sensing game.

Khalimov scanned the dark surrounding peaks as he and his team exited the aul.

They would be most vulnerable in the first half hour; not only would a potential ambush team strike close to the beginning of the descent, but the human eye could take that long to become dark-adapted.

When he was a boy, one of Khalimov’s aunts had told him of the evil Jinn—ghosts and spirits—to explain everything bad, from illness to the greed of powerful men. Even then, Khalimov hadn’t been entirely convinced, but he thought if the Jinn did exist, they would be home in the deserted auls of the Dagestani mountains.

Khalimov wondered if Karim’s spirit would make its way to Jahannam, Jannah or live here on al-arḍ as Jinn.

Of course, Khalimov had, since childhood, seen the stark absence of logic in all religions, including his own.

It was not lost on him that a man’s religion was primarily predicated by the geography of his birth and his parents.

However, Khalimov also knew that the validity of the stories was not the point, but the principles woven within them for which men and women should abide.

Principles set out by a higher power referred to as Allah in his religion.

The West, in its obscenely arrogant belief that the individual could formulate a guiding code, had begun its decline, as all civilisations had.

Khalimov knew he was just a soldier for the Persian and Shia causes when he was stripped down to his essence.

He wondered how long those two causes would be exclusive.

However, his status as a sword for Iran had granted him access to some of the most influential members of the Islamic elite.

Khalimov had been told several years ago of a Russian-China-Islamic plot to undermine the West from the inside out.

The supposed plot involved China and Russia using the internet and plants within the Western educational system and media to shift the parameters of European ideology to the left and to create and stoke the fire of historic colonial guilt.

Once this had been accomplished, Islamic oil money would grease the governments of those countries to loosen their immigration laws to allow the Islamic world to get rid of, or to prevent the arrival of, Muslim undesirables.

Refugees from war-torn countries would be turned away from their prosperous Arab neighbours towards Europe.

And because white Christians now valued personal liberation over family, their births were dwarfed by their Islamic counterparts.

In fifty years, most of Europe would have been Muslim.

Khalimov had not believed it then and even now remained sceptical—he knew sometimes governments had to allow an increase in immigration to counteract emigration.

However, his cynicism had receded as time went on.

Indeed, he had read that almost one in five people in Germany were now first-generation immigrants.

The thought occurred to Khalimov that if Islamic global dominance was a matter of time, why were he and his men here?

They crept down the rocky outcrop, threading through the gaps in the dense trees.

Khalimov always found steep downslopes harder on his knees. Fortunately, due to his insistence on them avoiding the tracks and footpaths, the moss underfoot softened the impact.

A Steppe eagle flew out of the night. Khalimov thought it unusual, though not unheard of, as they were known to sleep at night.

Maybe a nocturnal predator had disturbed it. Neither wolves nor fully grown brown bears could climb.

A lynx, maybe.

The descent proved more arduous than the initial trek up.

Due to the steepness of some of the slopes, they had been forced to zigzag down.

At times, they’d had to sit and lower themselves down some of the rock faces.

After a time, Khalimov noticed the air having a greater restorative effect on him, his eyes adjusting properly against the dark.

Every so often, Khalimov would snap a fist up, and his team would take up arcs as he had taught them.

He could have sworn he heard a metallic knock somewhere further down.

The war veteran accepted his ears had probably sustained damage from his many instances of being in the proximity of explosive ordnance.

After hearing nothing untoward for a while, he spun his finger in the air to move his patrol off.

They silently followed him and eventually reached the bottom.

He understood that another potential ambush point would be on approach to their vehicles.

Rephidim had guaranteed that three vehicles would await them at his specified coordinates.

Khalimov indicated a listening stop, and the group formed an all-round defence.

A click floated into his ear.

He sidestepped to Jamal al-Sheikh and whispered, “Did you hear that?”

“Yes.”

“Arrowhead formation,” instructed Khalimov.

His friend nodded before mirroring the hand signal back to the men.

They fanned out in a shallow arrowhead and began to sweep silently through the forest.

Khalimov had been fighting all his life—but only in recent years had he trusted his combat instincts.

And usually, his instincts would manifest as a fear response—as it did now.

He couldn’t order a withdrawal based on a barely audible sound—even though al-Sheikh had confirmed it.

They needed those vehicles.

However, if an ambush party was ahead, he would lead his team into it.

He couldn’t simply send a scouting party—to counter an ambush, you needed numbers. Besides, if they had been betrayed, then the murder team would know everything about them and have placed cut-off parties.

The dragon barks of gunfire exploded the night air.

Al-Shiekh’s head snapped back, and his body followed.

Khalimov sidestepped as he screamed in Arabic, “Threat to the front. Forwards.”

For Allah and simplicity, Khalimov’s anti-ambush practices had all involved storming forward to overwhelm the attackers.

He had been aware of other tactics, such as a continuous peeling of the end man of the line until the patrol had entirely removed itself laterally out of the killing zone.

However, Khalimov had dismissed them. Extracting the dead or wounded using such methods would slow the patrol’s extraction; risking more casualties and leaving warriors behind had been declared haram by the Shura Council.

Khalimov’s eagle-eyes caught the yellow-green of a limonka sailing in.

His scream of “Grenade” pierced through the battle fog, his men mirroring his leap for cover.

The detonation bounced through his ribcage, and the combat veteran fought through the urge to stay flat, to rise and fire back.

He heard the gunning of an engine.

He shrieked, “Up. Up. Fire. Fire. Fire.”

His Inghimasi scrambled to carry out his orders.

The noise of a vehicle reversing clashed with his patrol’s increased weight of fire.

Khalimov spied the metallic moon glints through the trees.

“It’s moving left to right. Rotate around.”

As he fired at the moving target, his team fanned around him as instructed.

He knew whoever these ghosts were, they had escaped.

His instinct told him the immediate danger had gone.

He slung his weapon and rushed to al-Shiekh.

Khalimov knew no first aid was necessary.

You cannot bandage a bullet through the face, he thought.

37

Connor plunged his hand into Ibrahim’s webbing pouch and ripped out the Russian FFD and the angled scissors.

The white First Field Dressings differed from its green British counterpart in colour and longer length, resembling a cocaine brick to Connor’s eyes.

He quickly decided against using the scissors as the vehicle bounced along at speed. Instead, he pulled up the Mossad agent’s jumper and T-shirt.

Connor felt optimism curl within him on seeing the chunk of flesh gauged out of Ibrahim’s flank.

He had been dreading seeing an entry wound closer to the belly button. Still, the bleeding spread was significant.

He pressed the padded square hard against the wound, feeling the warm soup lick between his fingers.

Bruce, driving, said, “Connor, top of my original daysack, Celox.”

Connor said to Ibrahim, “‘Ere, hold that.”

Ibrahim replaced Connor’s hand with his, and the Englishman dived for the daysack.

He found the dark green pouch with yellow writing and opened it at the notches.

Years ago, Bruce had told Connor, “You have no right to learn how to be a lifetaker without first being highly competent in being a lifesaver.”

Connor replaced Ibrahim’s hand with his own before feeding the Celox gauze into the gaping hole.

The Mossad agent growled in pain as Connor packed a second piece of gauze into the wound before using the heel of his hand to press on it.

The Yorkshireman knew he’d have to keep the pressure on for three minutes before moving on to check for more injuries.

“Have you been hit anywhere else?” he asked, knowing he’d have to check anyway.

“No,” came the clear reply.

Bruce said, “We’ll have to get you to a hospital.”

“We both know we can’t do that. At least, not one anywhere close to here. Once that firefight gets reported, hospitals will be the first place they’ll head to.”

“You won’t be contributing to the mission when you’re dead from sepsis.”

“I have advanced medical supplies in the back.”

“Antibiotics and an intravenous drip?” asked Bruce.

“Yes.”

Connor questioned how effective Ibrahim would now be, with the injury and the potential side effects of the antibiotics.

He tentatively released the pressure, pleasantly surprised by how effectively the haemostatic gauze proved to be clotting the wound.

As he dressed the wound, Connor said, “That wasn’t an FSB arresting team back there. That was a military-type patrol.”

The Englishman had the best view of the patrol, so he decided to take the initiative to fire first.

Connor felt no remorse over an ‘us versus them’ kill.

However, the perverse thought came to him that despite his high sex drive and promiscuity, he might have killed more people than he’d slept with. He pushed it from his mind before he began to work it out.

Connor said, “So, we were set up?”

Bruce spoke softly, “It doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t they surround us at the building?”

Ibrahim, voice tired but lucid, said, “Maybe they decided it better to strike when we were all in the vehicle.”

Connor replied, “They couldn’t have known for sure that we would stop the vehicle that far out from the cache. They were moving in an arrowhead like an advance to contact, not an insertion into an ambush. All I can think is maybe we were spotted coming in, and some patrol was dispatched to investigate.”

Bruce said, “There is no military base or encampment around here. Maybe some type of militia?”

“I don’t think so,” said Connor. “I had the drop on the point man at an angle. As soon as I shot him, they snapped into professional drills—life-saving step, return fire. It was only Ibrahim’s grenade that allowed for the extraction.”

Silence.

And then Bruce said quietly, “Maybe it was them.”

“Who?” asked Ibrahim.

“The team tasked with stealing the bomb?”

Connor exclaimed, “Fuck me, that would be some coincidence, wouldn’t it? We’re three hundred miles away from the supposed ambush area.”

“Agreed,” said Bruce. “But the auls in those mountains are the only ones near the Georgian border that are deserted. Where better to hide out after the port attack? They’ve been privy to the same intelligence regarding this bomb—makes sense they would attempt to slip away during the night.”

Connor said, “Then they might have heard us and shook out in arrowhead as a precaution.”

“A possibility,” said Bruce. “And now, they have less than eighteen hours to complete their mission.”

Khalimov’s brain shuttled in the stillness of the night as he maintained a kneeling alert position in the centre of the protective circle of his men.

His shin rested on the corpse of his friend.

If this had been an ambush, then why had they scurried off?

And why hadn’t there been more of them?

Khalimov briefly thought they might be startled locals. However, Russians, let alone Dagestani Russians, did not have the right to bear arms, and even if they did, why would they be carrying automatic weapons and grenades?

He decided.

“Magomed. Imran. Separate and hand out his kit. He’s coming with us.”

“Yes, Qayid,” Magomed responded.

“Where are we going, Qayid?” asked Imran.

“To get the vehicles,” said Khalimov, and then to answer their unspoken question, “It seems like a chance encounter. Whoever they were, if they knew who we were, they would have brought more men.”

It occurred to Khalimov that what they had encountered might have been a cut-off party and that the main ambush could be awaiting them at the pickup point.

But his instinct told him it was safe.

No one argued as they carried out his orders.

They stalked forward, still in formation, with the two carrying Jamal al-Sheikh protected by the rest.

It pleased him that his men’s anxiety translated into a professional poise.

Khalimov realised their trust in him might have wavered, given that they had lost two men within twenty-four hours.

Still, he didn’t regret the slaying of Karim—a man would only moderate his behaviour until the memory of his punishment faded.

When Khalimov’s uncle contracted lung cancer, his wife had pleaded with both the surgeon and everyone who would listen for a cure.

Khalimov’s father had finally snapped, “I have a way. I will build a time machine, go back thirty years, and cut his fingers off.”

Indeed, Khalimov’s uncle would easily smoke two packs a day.

Karim had to be removed.

Though keeping alert, Khalimov increased the pace of the patrol when he did not feel danger.

Eventually, they came upon the three pickup trucks in the alcove—just where Rephidim said they would be.

Except, an elderly couple and a teenager stood to one side of them with a flashlight.

Bruce and Connor sat in the front of the Hilux as Ibrahim slept in the back.

During the ambush, Bruce felt the adrenaline stronger than he remembered.

Though he acquitted himself well, carrying out the actions drilled into him well over three decades ago, the intensity of the sensation disconcerted him a little.

On hearing the sound that Bruce hadn’t, Connor had harshly whispered the order to “Take up firing positions to the left of that tree. If it’s enemy, I’ll open fire. Have a grenade ready.”

Bruce had gone through a series of thoughts and emotions during the drive’s quiet.

He recognised how impressed he was at the speed of Connor’s decision-making and his decisiveness of action.

And Bruce accepted that the few years of being a suit had resensitised him to combat, if not softened him.

The endorphins in his blood didn’t begin to abate for approximately half an hour.

And once they had all gone, as much as he hated to admit it, he had briefly thought of Adriana and what his death might mean for her and his nieces.

He decided this would be the last time—he would fully hand the reins to Ciara, Jaime, Connor and the rest of The Chameleon Project personnel.

He’d park himself comfortably behind a desk as chief of the renewed and updated Section D, which had the remit of conducting covert political actions and paramilitary operations.

The Scotsman realised if the younger soldiering version of himself knew of his current thoughts, he would be aghast.

“Do you watch any sports?” said Connor, breaking his thoughts.

“I’ve started to follow Formula One a bit in the last few years,” said Bruce.

With Adriana being a fan, Bruce had become engrossed in it.

Connor said, “Fernando Alonso might be a superior driver to Hamilton and Verstappen as he’s proven he can win or do great in slower cars. He has also won the Le Mans twice.”

“It’s an interesting point,” said Bruce. “Depends on what your goals are.”

“Can I ask you something? Non-Formula One orientated.”

“You can ask.”

“How sure are we that Iran fucked off Resolution 2231 and built or acquired a nuke?”

“We can’t,” admitted Bruce. “But we can be sure that if they did, it won’t be where the Israelis believe it is. And SIS has intelligence—not corroborated as yet—that the Ayatollah has decreed it be fired on Tel Aviv if the boots of an Israeli soldier ever set foot on Iranian soil. You see our dilemma?”

Connor said, “And if they don’t have a nuke, or worse, have no real intention for one, then World War III would be ignited on a lie—millions of lives. Israel, the Sunni Arab nations and the US on one side, and Iran, Russia, China, Shiite Arab nations and Iranian proxies on the other. Protests and counter-protests worldwide would spill over into violence and threaten to destabilise countries.”

“That’s right.”

“So we are going to stop Muad’Dib’s Jihad?”

Bruce said, “You read ‘Dune’?”

“No, watched the films. Didn’t want to read the book because Villeneuve is making a third,” said Connor. “You read it?”

“A long time ago, when I had more time to read fiction.”

“Do you ever think you’ll be a man of leisure? Golf, gardening and all that?”

“I was a man of leisure until this.”

“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in,” growled Connor. “A bit of Silvio Dante for you there.”

“It’s Michael Corleone in ‘The Godfather Part III’, surely?”

“No, it’s me doing an impression of Silvio Dante doing an impression of Michael Corleone in ‘The Godfather Part III’. You never seen the Sopranos?”

As a general rule, Bruce watched films, not long-running television series, due to time constraints.

“I am afraid I missed the boat with that one.”

“You know of these things called streaming services that allow you to watch old series and films. I mean, it might cost you a tenner a season, but I am sure even a jock could stretch to that.”

“You’re aware that the men of Yorkshire are tarred with the same cliché of thriftiness?”

“You wouldn’t say it’s a cliché if you met my cousin, Tom—he’s so frugal he uses a fork to eat his cereal so he can use the milk the following day.”

A laugh rushed from Bruce’s diaphragm and escaped, and Connor joined him.

Once they had settled, Connor said, “I thought Uzi would be back by now.”

“Uzi? Because they are both Israeli weapons?”

“Well, that’ll be what I tell him if he catches me calling him it, but it’s his eyes—as in, ‘Uzi he looking at?’”

Despite his smile, Bruce said, “That would have hit harder if you hadn’t already peaked with that ‘fork and cereal’ joke.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” replied Connor, adding, “It’s a shame we can’t just get the Russians to Spetsnaz the fuck out of these ragheads.”

“You still using terms like ‘ragheads’?”

“Has our organisation gone Disney now?” asked Connor rhetorically. “Calling them ragheads reminds me that they belong to ISIS, an organisation that tried to genocide the Yazidis, raping and torturing women and young girls. I think ragheads is the least offensive term you can use to describe these people.”

“It’s also a term that can lead to the underestimation of our enemy—these, as you have experienced, are not farmers with AKs. They are highly experienced, self-sufficient and actual warfighters.”

“You’re right,” said Connor. “And I know it’s pointless now, but if we’d have thrown more grenades, then maybe we could have been on a plane for tea and biscuits by now.”

“Or maybe we’d have all died.”

“Yeah, coulda, woulda, shoulda. My uncles do that with sport.”

“Examples?”

“Fuckin’ loads. What if the great Mexican boxer Salvador Sanchez hadn’t died at twenty-three? What if Muhammed Ali hadn’t lost three years of his prime? What if Ronaldo R9 and Ronaldinho hadn’t been party animals? What if Jonah Lomu had healthy kidneys? Would Bruce Lee have done well in the UFC? All sorts.”

“You have any ‘What ifs’ of your own?” asked Bruce.

Connor took a moment to answer.

“What if you hadn’t taken me under your wing?”

“Yeah,” said Bruce. “I got that right.”

38

The elderly man and, presumably, his son carried what seemed to Khalimov to be Mosin-Nagants—five-shot, bolt-action relics from the Cold War.

Khalimov knew the Russians did have the right to bear arms, but he also knew that they were prohibited a burst function or anything above a ten-round capacity.

A bullet is a bullet, whatever it is fired from, he thought.

Khalimov guessed instantly what had happened—the noise of the firefight had roused the local farmers to investigate.

The ISIS leader knew witnesses were bad, but so were bodies, and so was driving a vehicle with bullet holes.

He indicated to his patrol that he would go alone.

He stripped off his webbing and body armour and placed his AK-133 rifle on top of them.

Khalimov moved towards his chosen point in the treeline and broke out approximately ten metres away from the startled trio.

He raised his hands, took two steps and dropped to his knees.

“Voda, pozhaluysta, voda,” he gasped, asking for water in his best Russian dialect.

They looked at one another before exchanging anxious Russian sentences.

He placed both hands on the ground before they could start to interrogate him in a language that, though fluent in, he hadn’t mastered the Dagestani inflexions.

A scuffling of footsteps began towards him.

He felt the rough, strong hands grip him by the armpits, forcing him upright.

He found himself face to face with the elderly woman. Judging by the dynamic, this woman made the decisions, something alien to Khalimov’s culture.

He could see the compassion in her eyes before she softly spoke her instructions, Khalimov feigning incoherence.

The two males passed his arms around their necks before turning him back down the track towards their farm.

Khalimov cursed inside—he needed at least one of his arms.

He deliberately made himself limp. However, despite their respective ages, the two men showed a typical ‘farmhand’ strength. Indeed, if not for his height, Khalimov believed his feet might have left the ground.

He could see the crumbling perimeter wall of the farm ahead.

“Nyet, nyet, nyet!” cried Khalimov, feigning scary delusions.

He began to struggle, managing to free his arm from the boy.

The elderly woman placed a hand on his chest and spoke soothingly to him.

Khalimov acted a descent towards calmness at her words.

He reminded himself of the words of al-Baghdadi:

“If a country’s government perpetrates violence and death against your people, and that nation’s citizens do not rise in revolt against such actions, then they are guilty by association.”

Khalimov’s sleight of hand produced his Makarov.

He felt the recoil in his palm as the boy’s face imploded.

The old man’s berserk strength almost dislodged the ISIS soldier’s arm off his neck before Khalimov shot him twice in the heart.

He whipped his forearm into the clawing woman’s sternum, knocking her to the floor.

The anguish in her eyes died as he shot her twice in the chest.

Connor drove, with Ibrahim awake next to him.

He glanced into the mirror to see Bruce’s eyes closed in a semblance of meditation. Only the slight cant of his head indicated he wasn’t.

The old bastard, even naps cool, thought Connor.

Connor glanced at Ibrahim. “You feeling OK?”

“As OK as a shot man can.”

“First time?”

“Yes,” said Ibrahim. “You?”

“I’ve never been shot. Caught bad shrapnel once, but I won’t pretend it’s the same.”

“But you know it feels like being hit with a hammer—not a ripping tear?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that is the case.”

Ibrahim threw a nod towards the back. “Worked together long?”

“A while,” answered Connor, adhering to the ‘need-to-know’ rule.

Ibrahim lowered his voice. “My uncle said he wished your partner—or boss—had been born Israeli. Or at least Jewish.”

Connor nodded. “What age is your old man?”

“Not yet fifty.”

Connor knew that made him only a handful of years Bruce’s junior.

And he had the awareness that Bruce had been trained, as had he, to keep his eyes closed for a few moments on waking.

“You like any sports?”

“Why?”

“Why? Because I am not sitting for hours, not talking. Unless you’re shooting for the mysterious type of image.”

Connor caught Ibrahim side-eyeing him before answering, “I like watching tennis.”

“Oh, really? Couldn’t get into it myself. One of my uncles says that Roger Federer is the best ever.”

“Your uncle allows his emotion towards Federer to be an obstacle to the facts. People do that with Federer because he plays ‘beautiful’ tennis and has a humble personality.”

Connor smiled, “Educate me—so that I can argue with him.”

“The statistics clearly show that Djokovic is the best of all time.”

“I remember someone else saying that to my uncle, who said that Roger Federer’s era was before Djokovic’s, and so their head-to-head record shouldn’t be seen as the be-all and end-all.”

“It does not matter. The man holds the record for the most weeks as world number one, an eighty-three and a half winning percentage, the most Grand Slams and the most wins against Nadal and Federer. And he’s the oldest year-end number one. The only reason now that people wouldn’t choose him as the greatest is because he isn’t as ‘charming’ as Federer or Nadal. But I am more ‘charmed’ of a child from a war-torn country rising to greatness.”

“Fucking hell, mate, I was after some pub ammunition, not a Rommel speech.”

He smiled at Ibrahim, who smiled back before saying, “Luckily, my ancestors are not Jewish—or else I might have been offended by the mention of Rommel.”

“Yeah, I guess even if you’re a ‘good’ baddie, you’re still a baddie.”

“Yes, it is well known that Rommel had a sense of honour, even towards captured enemies. I wonder if that would have been the case if he was posted to the Eastern Front?”

Connor thought for a moment. “It’s an interesting point. A famous anarchist once said, ‘People are only as good as the world allows them to be. I’ll show you. When the chips are down, these… these civilised people, they’ll eat each other.’”

“Which famous anarchist?”

“You’ve never seen Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’?”

Ibrahim shook his head. “I don’t watch superhero films.”

Connor said nothing and refrained from telling Ibrahim that he had a Superman tattoo on his chest—something he wore proudly with the testosterone of youth but suspected he’d regret if he ever made it to Bruce’s age.

The Hilux hit the coastal road. The towns and villages they passed through reminded Connor of a cross between some of the villages in rural Afghanistan and the outposts depicted in various westerns, interspersed with more modern-looking new builds.

The sea view dived into his eyes and soothed his diaphragm.

He remembered the holidays his maternal grandparents took him on. His mum would only stay for a day or two into the usual ten-day holidays around the UK coast.

She would state that work would be the reason, but now Connor thought that maybe she just needed a break from trying to control an unruly kid.

Connor knew in the couple of years before joining a boxing club, his proclivity for violence and crime had threatened to make his mum a pariah in the affluent area of Roundhay, Leeds.

Yet, his mum refused to send him to live with his father, fearing it would send him further down the path of criminality.

Connor had shown an interest in wildlife documentaries as a child—particularly one about the warfare between lions and hyenas named ‘Eternal Enemies’, which he found fascinating.

His mother had put two and two together to devise a dodgy five and would tell people that he was destined to follow her into being a veterinarian.

His father had tried to push this narrative on him—but quickly accepted that Connor’s traits would probably lend themselves to something more visceral and dangerous.

Which is why his father had somehow managed to circumvent the Royal Marines’ policy regarding his criminal record.

Connor, to this day, had not known how and, indeed, during basic training, had expected to be pulled out at any moment, citing its discovery.

Alas, once he had passed out of training, he knew they would unlikely kick him out.

As the sun lit sapphires on the waves, Connor knew he should take Grace and Jackson on holiday, but he felt a searing awareness regarding them now constituting a vulnerability of his.

He had not long returned from Canada, where he’d gone up against an excommunicated mafia leader who had no qualms regarding targeting civilians.

Connor remembered asking his father why big-time boxers didn’t have ‘big’ fights more frequently, as they added to a fighter’s legacy and bank balance.

The reply had been, “Boxing was different in the fifties. Even the top lads’ purses were a lot smaller than now—outside the heavyweight division, at least. So they had to fight more often. It was a bit like what Thai boxing is now—you had to fight all the time to make some brass, and so you weren’t as scared of losing cos it didn’t matter as much. Now, you have the eyes of the world on ya in big fights, and if you lose, your next purse will be a lot smaller. It’s a big emotional challenge, and you can only have a certain amount of emotional challenges in a given period before you go ‘flat’.”

And the last few years had been crammed with ‘emotional’ events.

The feeling had grown more potent that he should leave this behind. Tom had made noises a few years back about leaving to go straight-ish. Both he and Connor had been grooming Luke for the top position.

Indeed, Connor knew Luke could take over now and do a great job if he chose to. However, Connor also knew Luke still looked up to him to the point that he would eventually be running the family if Connor came home permanently.

Despite his family’s, and more specifically his father’s, lineage, Connor had never thought of a future as an organised crime boss.

He would get through this and tell the old man he wanted out.

Khalimov had two of his men guard the Starstreak and munitions while the rest carried the corpses into the farmhouse before dropping them down into the cellar.

He couldn’t tell how much time this would buy them. Maybe the bodies would be discovered later that day or in a week.

Luckily, Dagestan wasn’t so highly developed as to have traffic video cameras beyond the main city highways.

His team had divided themselves into three vehicles—a blue Ford Ranger, a red Nissan Navara and a white Toyota Tundra. The colour scheme resembling the Great Satan’s flag was not lost on him.

He wondered how thorough and expansive the investigation would be when the bodies were found.

Would they trek up into the deserted auls? To find what? Could dogs pick up the scent of Karim’s buried corpse?

He couldn’t concern himself with this now—he had to reconfigure the teams, and they had to make their way up to the north of the country as fast as possible without drawing unwanted attention to themselves.

He steeled himself by reminding himself of the trials the prophet had to endure: father dead before he was born, mother dying when he was six years of age, being declared Abtaar—cut off—by his local community for having no sons living past childhood, being ridiculed as a madman when he began to preach the revelations that Allah had given to him.

And Muhammad had led his followers to victory in the Battle of Uhud against the numerically superior Quraysh despite broken ribs and his head being split to the bone.

The loss of a rat is not a loss. And every Jihad requires martyrs such as Jamal. My men and I are strong, battle-hardened and committed. We will not fail, he told himself.

Bruce awoke but kept his eyes closed for a few moments.

Sensing nothing untoward and the vehicle still in motion, he slowly opened them.

Connor told Ibrahim, “If we get out of this, and you come to England, I’ll take you to a café for a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich.”

Ibrahim replied, “I can’t. I am Jewish, remember.”

“Relax, mate, I’ll pay for it.”

“N… No, I meant—”

Connor’s laughter cut him off, and Bruce couldn’t help but smirk.

Ibrahim chuckled, too, before he said thoughtfully, “That is one of the Jewish problems.”

“That you can’t eat bacon,” answered Connor.

“No,” said Ibrahim. “No one thinks of a people being repressed if they are rich and successful.”

“I didn’t think about it like that,” said Connor. “Then again, referring to yourselves as ‘God’s Chosen People’ is bound to wind a few people up.”

Bruce didn’t particularly like the direction of the conversation but let it continue and closed his eyes.

“Our enemies enjoy misinterpreting ‘The Chosen People’ canon. Neither the Torah nor the Prophets suggest we are a superior race. It is just that we are chosen to represent the morality of God because of our flaws, not in the absence of them.  We have a responsibility not only to God but to our fellow man.”

“Changing the subject slightly, given your background, do you ever ponder what Islam and Judaism have in common? I mean, you might argue that Judaism—I mean proper Judaism—has more in common with Islam than Christianity. Both are properly monotheistic—none of this Holy Trinity carry-on—have set prayer times, believe in pilgrimage, adhere to fasting, and believe that men and women should dress modestly. The Quran, not just the Torah, states that the Jews are The Chosen People and that Israel was given to them.”

Ibrahim said, “It is true the Quran states that God entered a covenant with the children of Israel, absolving them of their sins if they believed in him, prayed, gave to charity and honoured the Prophets. However, according to Islam, the Israelites did break their covenant, which is why God cursed them. The irony is that the Jews that have the most in common with fanatical Muslims—the orthodox, Zionist Jews—are the ones who hate them the most.”

“That’s an interesting point,” said Connor.

“Do you have any religious beliefs?”

“I think the Bible, the New Testament at least, is a superb book on ethics. I like aspects of Greek and Norse mythology. Manichaeism is interesting, though a bit black and white.”

Ibrahim asked, “What is Manichaeism?”

“The Manicheans believe that God is good but not all-powerful and can’t stop evil from happening. Manicheans believe humanity is caught in the conflict between light and dark.”

39

Avi hadn’t often made the trip to where his wife worked.

Indeed, he had never ventured onto the oncology ward; the rare occasion he’d had to collect her, he usually waited in the car park.

Despite private hospitals being expensive, the black and red angular structure covered over five acres with several floors due to the number of overseas patients, particularly from the Jewish diaspora.

As he pulled into the car park and surveyed the luxury Mercedes and BMW models, he reckoned the wealthier the Jew, the more forgiving towards German car manufacturers they became.

He parked and made his way inside.

The hospital reception had a five-star hotel feel to it, with a mahogany engraving of ‘Hamlisch Medical Centre’ above the cylindrical glass welcome desk.

The pretty, smiling brunette wore a suit jacket with a white, open-collar shirt.

“How can I help you, sir?”

“My name is Avi Teper. My wife wo—”

“Yes, Eliana’s husband.”

“Is she on the oncology ward today?”

“Yes.” She flashed him straight, white teeth, “Go right ahead.”

Avi’s simmering nerves began to boil as his feet clicked down the highly polished floor.

He couldn’t work out whether he felt excitement or fear.

He took the elevator to the third floor, rounded the corner and found Eliana and another nurse attending to a gaunt, bald young woman in a pristine bed across a large room.

After a few moments, she noticed him, gestured to her colleague and began to stride over.

Her dishevelled blonde bob bounced around her slightly flamboyant white-framed glasses.

“You OK?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Shouldn’t take long.”

“Follow me, Avi.”

Eliana led him down the corridor, rounded the corner and past several doors.

She slowed and then stopped at one of the mustard-yellow doors, opening it with her key card.

They stepped inside the room not dissimilar to the one she had left, except for the absence of a patient.

The other doors stood on either side corner.

She turned to him and said, “Take my key card, and I’ll wait here. He’s two down to the left. There are no cameras—only out in the corridor.”

He nodded, trying not to show his wife his nerves.

Avi had never met the man before—Eliana had been the conduit of the intelligence passed between them.

He took the key card, kissed her and walked through the doors.

Walking into the designated room, he saw that the Mossad director stood, suited, looking out of the window.

“Mister Teper,” said Naftali Avidan. “Good to finally meet you face to face.”

“Likewise, sir.”

“Hopefully my last time in this place.”

This statement surprised Teper, as it seemed like a formal admission of his last chemotherapy session and, thus, his cancer.

Then Teper realised that it was ridiculous to be surprised—of course Avidan knew he knew; his wife helped administer the treatment.

Avidan pointed his four fingers at Avi, who took a moment to recognise the gesture and shook the taller man’s hand.

Naftali Avidan kept hold of it and said, “Where is Rephidim?”

Connor lay on the moss crisped by frost, surrounded by the North Caucasus night.

The sea had thrown a trace of salt in the air.

Before the trio left the Land Rover, they had covered their faces, throats and hands with the tri-coloured cam cream of black, brown and green.

Connor remembered that during Royal Marine field exercises, the lads would use it as sparingly, knowing its removal required the rigmarole of scrubbing with baby wipes and having to trust an Oppo to inspect your ears.

However, he recalled something an experienced sergeant had once said before they entered the Green Zone in Afghanistan: “It’s not just for camouflage—it’s war paint, and it gives you an edge when you come face to face with the enemy.”

Only two hours before, he had ‘zeroed’ the suppressed SVD Dragunov he now lay behind.

Though some would describe it as a sniper rifle, Connor—as did many others—thought it more a marksman’s rifle. Though the maximum range with the fitted PSO-1 scope was listed at thirteen hundred metres, Connor—despite his immense skill with sniper and long-range rifles—was only confident of hitting targets not much over half that range given the little time he had to ‘get his eye in’.

It occurred to him that despite them being here to stop a potential Armageddon, they did not have the best equipment for the task. Of course, Connor knew an SVD Dragunov would be easier to ‘fall off a wagon’ than a Lobaev SVL.

Connor could have lain over two kilometres away with that weapon system as Lord of the Battlefield.

He knew he had no right to complain about equipment; he recalled a particularly vicious firefight in Afghanistan being curtailed by attack helicopters pounding the Taliban positions and Connor thinking, Fucking glad I am not them.

Their plan remained relatively simple; Connor would take out the engine block, tyres and the occupants after they had taken ownership of the weapon.

Neither Bruce, Ibrahim, nor Connor could think of any way the terrorists could transport the bomb out other than by one of their own vehicles.

And they already knew, from Ciara’s interrogation of the double agent Beni Mizrahi, that the ISIS unit would be using standard Toyota Hiluxes. 

The Scotsman had guessed that the strike point would be just shy of two kilometres north of this position—and Connor had concurred, seeing the two high points and the shock of dense forest in the low ground beside the road as ideal for concealing an ambush party.

If Connor, Bruce and Ibrahim managed to disable the vehicles, then Bruce’s contact could be mobilised to secure the weapons.

Connor still couldn’t quite understand why Alexey Orlov couldn’t have used his influence to scramble some kind of unit to prevent the ambush in the first instance.

However, Bruce explained that if Orlov reached out pre-emptively, then it could reach the ears of whichever Russian had helped facilitate it, and the false flag operation could be postponed.

And Connor felt uneasy just accepting intelligence from an interrogated agent that not even Bruce knew.

Still, Connor followed the old man’s lead even now.

As he stared at the length of the track, Connor’s mind began to wander.

One reason he loved working for The Chameleon Project was that in the beginning, there had been a distinct lack of ambiguity—at least to his eyes—regarding the evilness, or at least wicked criminality, of the people Bruce had sent him up against.

He respected the London Brigade of the Russian Bratva led by Ravil Yelchin and Makar Gorokhov but felt no remorse when he and Bruce killed them.

And he felt a visceral glee when running a chainsaw through the leg and arm of the treacherous MI5 chief Roger Stanton and a similar sensation when stamping on the head of a woman who had helped facilitate the kidnap and trafficking of vulnerable people so that their organs could be sold to ‘the elite’.

The two that had given him the most pleasure had been the torturing of two child murderers—one a Ukrainian Special Forces commander turned terrorist that he chained to the back of a Land Rover before dragging him into a flesh-ripping, bone-shearing death.

The other had been a Serbian war criminal he had starved and slowly burned in acid for ten days.

A year or so afterwards, Connor would burst into laughter, thinking about their demise.

And he knew Bruce knew this sickness about him. He knew Bruce, on occasion, had positively indulged him—like a dog trainer would a Belgian Malinois.

Though Connor still had this… trait… he noticed he didn’t get quite the same thrill from it.

In the last year or so, he’d scalded the face off a Colombian witch who had arranged the disfigurement of innocent girls, amongst other things, and he burned alive an Italian-Canadian Mafia boss who had ordered a hit on another blameless woman.

Both times, he had merely been amused, not possessed by a giggling pleasure like he used to be.

Was he getting soft or merely desensitised?

A low crunching sound sliced through his reverie.

Imran al-Masry had skirted around where he had thought he picked up a heat signature.

He couldn’t be sure and so moved closer.

His Syrian blood hated the cold of Dagestan—and he yearned to be back in the Middle East.

Except, this time, if he made it back, his legend would spread like wildfire.

If.

And Imran was not sure how he felt about it.

He knew he was not immune to the respect and admiration of others. Yet, The Quran 45:23 stated:

“Have you noted the one whose god is his ego? Consequently, God sends him astray, despite his knowledge, seals his hearing and his mind, and places a veil on his eyes. Who then can guide him, after such a decision by God? Would you not take heed?”

And the prophet Mohammed exemplified this through his simple and unpretentious lifestyle.

Also, despite the rhetoric the Imams and other IS fighters spouted, Imran knew that the Jews did not forget. He knew of all their retaliatory assassinations after the Palestinians’ amateurish kidnap of the Israeli athletes in Munich.

He knew that after this, he would have to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life, but he was surely in more danger now, continuing to be a fighter.

Maybe he could retire from the frontline and continue their Jihad some other way. Maybe recruiting or training.

He crept along in a curve so that he faced into the wind—though he doubted any human could smell him until it was too late, it never hurt to stick to the skills he had been taught.

He peered to his right to observe the unusual sharpness of the demarcation line where the mountains gave way to the beaches.

The ambush point lay nearly two kilometres and barely an hour away, so Khalimov had them patrol out as a countermeasure to a potential trap.

Due to them losing visual with one another, Khalimov had ordered the tight maintenance of radio communications.

Imran had informed them he would be radio silent for approximately fifteen minutes while checking out the small heat signature.

Nine minutes had passed.

As he began the shallow cresting of the mountaintop, he stooped so as not to skyline himself.

He reckoned when he reached the plateau, he’d be around forty metres from where he had originally spotted it.

He guessed it to be an animal—hopefully, a laid down oxen or bearded goat rather than a wolf or even a Persian leopard, which sometimes moved into the area during the cold.

Just before reaching the top, he lowered onto his knees and, keeping his AK-74M close to his chest, monkey crawled.

The treeline appeared to his left, and he skirted it.

Knowing the sand had almost left the top of the hourglass, he sped up, not wishing to perform a communications check this close to the potential target.

His belt kit caught a protruding branch, snapping it before he could feel the tension.

He froze.

He doubted the snap would have been heard, estimating it to be still twenty metres away.

Or, if it had, it might be put down to a falling branch or an animal.

Still, best to remain motionless for a little while, he thought.

He began to count down from fifty while slowly reaching down to turn off his personal role radio—the last thing he needed was an errant crackle of static.

Ten, nine, eight, seven—

Three things hit him simultaneously—a rough hand over his mouth, a knee to his lower back and a blade pressed to his throat.

A demonic whisper swirled into his ears in a language he recognised to be English.

“Can you speak English? If you can’t, I’ll kill you now.”

He only recognised this because ISIS had recruited a number of British Muslims—more for their passports than any bravery or skill as fighters.

The whisper again, and Imran recognised the gist of the question being, “Could he speak English?”

What should he say?

The answer climbed out of his mouth.

“Ye… yes… I talk English.”

The whisper again. He thought the question to be, “How many?”

“Four, zero,” Imran answered, meaning forty in an attempt to frighten whoever this was.

He felt a small relief when the blade crept off his neck.

His brain barely registered the piercing of his medulla oblongata as the point of the blade sledgehammered into the base of his skull.

It switched off soon after as his life slid away.

40

Connor, out of habit, wiped the blade on the corpse’s back.

He knew he should not even have asked the captive anything in the first place.

As soon as he caught the Arabic intonation in the voice, he killed the fighter—it wasn’t as if he could rely on any intelligence he might have gained.

He guessed the ISIS soldier might have been lying in making out there were forty others in the AO.

Still, it wasn’t his call.

The Englishman slid back into the wood, performed a rapid scan and touched the pressel switch of his PRR.

“Alpha One, this is Bravo Two. Message over.”

Connor had chosen the call signs, differentiating them as much as possible for clarity over the net.

“Bravo Two, this is Alpha One. Send over.”

Connor succinctly told him what had occurred, including all the details he thought were pertinent.

Bruce answered immediately. “They know. I am unsure how much they know, but this ambush point is compromised—convene at the ERV, and we’ll move from there.”

“Roger, out.”

Bruce knelt behind a moss-covered tree.

He glanced up at the shielding canopy at the dark green branches, grasping for the lighter green mist of the leaves.

The thought occurred to him that whoever the Russian traitor who planned the convoy route was, they had a grasp of the details—any other reasonable way through to the makeshift port would have taken them through the more barren mountain passes, not the dense forest here.

He silently cursed his knee when kneeling at the ERV.

He’d had it replaced some years ago after having it shot out whilst held by the Russian Bratva.

Since completing the recovery period, his knee hadn’t given him trouble, except when really cold—like now, or when he had been on it for an extended period under weight—like now.

And Connor Reed—not nearly as experienced or skilled as he went on to become—had been the one who had rescued him.

He’d had help, but it had also been true that he’d had to recruit it by contacting a panicking Jaime.

And the Central American had told Bruce of this after the fact, not Reed.

Bruce considered Jaime, Connor and Ciara perhaps his most outstanding professional achievements.

Despite Connor appearing from the precise angle he said he would, he looked phantom-like to Bruce—and the Scotsman had worked with some of the world’s best soldiers.

Bruce knew how much of a rarity Connor was—an agent almost as equally adept in rugged terrain like mountainous forest and urban environments, in firefights and unarmed combat, in intelligence gathering and most forms of ‘kinetic’ operations.

Connor slid towards him and asked, “What’s the plan, boss?”

Bruce signalled to Ibrahim to move towards their position.

The Israeli at least had the tactical awareness to keep his arcs facing outwards and only to dress in as close as necessary to hear.

His injury didn’t appear to compromise him yet.

Bruce slung his rifle and pulled out his waterproofed map.

He picked a blade of grass and used it as a pointer.

“Now I’ve had ‘eyes-on’, I think the ambush will be a little further up, not long after where the road runs out of feeder tracks. Like we said, I reckon it’ll be a missile destroying the front and rear vehicles to trap the centre ones. A sniper will be posted on the opposite side of the copse to deny any protection detail cover from view or fire.”

“Fuck being down there with a sniper on the high ground,” said Connor. “Pity, I am a pretty good shot with a sniper rifle.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” said Bruce. “Assuming I am correct about the ambush point, where would you set up as a sniper?”

Khalimov synced himself with the bitter cold stillness of the dark of this rugged land.

His wide eyes studied the double-layered scene of black mountains and dark blue clouds hovering like spaceships in the black night.

He lay prone on the forest edge of one of two hills, separated by a road that slithered for almost a kilometre before climbing into the dark peaks of the Dagestani northern range.

The forest swarmed down the left side of the hill and into the valley floor—and the location of the ambush squad.

The other hill lay over half a kilometre to the right—where the Starstreak team lay in wait.

And his position provided the overwatch for both.

He knew immediately what had occurred when Imran failed his communications check for the second time.

Though he knew Imran would likely be dead, he felt vindicated in separating a scouting party off and leaving the vehicles a few kilometres away, hiking in the ambush parties.

He looked through the scope of the Snipex Alligator to the furthest distance to see the peak of Gora Tsanta. He felt a little bereft regarding the absence of his friend al-Sheikh.

Only al-Sheikh, Abu—call sign Hawk—and himself had the requisite experience to operate the anti-material rifle that used the huge 14.5MM round. Since al-Sheikh ceased to live and Abu co-located with the ambush group, the responsibility now lay with him.

The ETA on the package arrival was not for another three-quarters of an hour.

Khalimov felt justified in choosing more men for increased firepower and being afforded some losses over the cons of coordination and security.

He kept an eye on the far distance where the road cut through the mountain pass.

Magomed lay approximately two metres to his right. Khalimov had altered the team composition so that he and the Dagestani machine gunner formed a ‘fighting pair’.

Khalimov had given the Dagestani ISIS stalwart the Steiner military binoculars and his own AK-133 rifle.

He dismissed the thoughts of home that attempted to crawl into his brain like winter spiders in a warm shed.

His Inghimasis’ task was to stop the convoy with the Starstreak. With the front and rear vehicles taken out, they would ambush any guard element who would be forced to leave the vehicles, if nothing else, for fear of being struck with a missile.

However, whether a protection team would be posted within the vehicle with the radiological weapons was unknown.

Then, he would use the HIMERA G1 Pro to open and send a transmission in Russian using a script that Rephidim had given him to memorise.

After that, Rephidim’s brief stated that a Mil Mi-17 would be dispatched to collect the radiological bomb at a location where the rest of Khalimov’s team would meet it outside Kchun-Kazmalyar before spiriting it over into Azerbaijan.

Though his initial mistrust of Rephidim had waned through the fixer proving himself numerous times, it had not completely vanished.

Khalimov knew the mystery of Rephidim’s background to be a major source of mistrust—indeed, he couldn’t even be sure he was Muslim, let alone a Sunni.

However, some of the foremost Iranian proxy successes had been due to the intelligence provided by the man cumulating in the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

It had been his intelligence that pinpointed the weaknesses in the so-called Iron Wall, that a concentrated missile barrage should be used before it, but most of all, that HAMAS should lull the Israelis into a false sense of security for a few years before striking like a devil scorpionfish.

His eyes flickered to the tiny, barely visible dim light dancing in the distant mountain range.

He hovered his eye over the scope to confirm it to be the convoy.

The distant light finally began to grow as it wound along the swerving pass.

Early, he thought.

Due to the steepness of the mountainside, the roads had been built with sharp meanders; taking into account the convoy’s slow speed due to the ‘fragile’ cargo and the ‘as the eagle flies’ distance, Khalimov guessed it not much more than twenty minutes away.

“If Sand Cat has been killed, then has not the operation been compromised?” asked Magomed.

“His last check-in was made two kilometres away. If an enemy has killed him, it means they are not sure where our ambush is, which means we have time.”

“Of course, Qayid.”

“But just to be certain,” started Khalimov. “We have time. We will split, perform a clearance patrol and meet back.”

Magomed looked relieved, “Yes, Qayid.”

41

Bruce’s knee throbbed as he sprinted through the steep forest.

He had spotted the lights of the first convoy vehicle and knew the time was nigh.

Though his legs did not seem to move as quickly as they used to, his cardiovascular system still seemed mercifully strong due to his regular judo and swimming sessions.

He slowed before reaching the top, lowering himself into a monkey crawl.

Peering through the trees, his eyes scanned for the sniper—nothing.

His heart plummeting caused his mind to grasp for a solution—perhaps the sniper had co-located with the Starstreak on the other hill crest.

Bruce caught the movement in his peripheral vision.

A man holding a suppressed sniper rifle spun around the tree within a metre of him and fired.

The suppressed round tore Bruce’s rifle clean out of his hands.

Despite feeling as if the force could have fractured his wrist, he snatched the barrel of the sniper rifle, forcing it away whilst firing a punch into the recipient’s face.

He recognised him—Khalimov.

His would-be killer rode the blow, returning his own whilst dropping the rifle.

Bruce snatched at the sleeve, attempting to take a grip of the man and initiate a vertical grapple.

The Scotsman barely blocked the crunching elbow with his forearm, whipping it around his enemy’s upper arm.

He hooked his calf around the inside of his opponent’s right and reaped it out.

When the inevitable balance-saving pushback came, Bruce spun his back to execute an Uchi mata—Inner-thigh reaping throw.

His kneecap seemed to shift out of its housing mid-throw.

The sniper should have been thrown onto his back with the Scotsman’s weight pile driving through him.

Instead, Bruce collapsed and, despite death being on his back, the pain from his knee threatened to paralyse him.

The Scotsman felt the strong hands push off his shoulder blades.

His instinct anticipated a blow, so he bucked and spun like a shark to face his aggressor.

Bruce barely avoided the punch before snatching the arm at the elbow with two clasping hands and bridging to that side.

Though lacking the usual power due to having only a single ‘drive leg’, it sent the ISIS fighter lurching as Bruce scrambled on top of him.

It took all his mental resources to compartmentalise the ice pick of agony embedded in his kneecap.

Bruce wrapped his arm around and under his opponent’s head and switched his hips so his flank and arm applied crushing pressure to Khalimov’s chest and face, respectively.

Pinning his foe with the Kesa Gatame—scarf hold—the former competition Judoka used his other hand to punch his antagonist’s face.

Bruce watched for a protective hand to shoot up, which he would snatch to trap between his legs to torque with elbow-snapping pressure.

However, due to his knee, he could not stabilise the scarf hold as tightly as he would have liked.

And Khalimov, either through a natural fighter’s tactical thinking or grappling training, forced his elbow between them, turning onto his side and threatening to escape ‘out the back’.

Bruce, unsure whether he could even stand, let alone box, knew his best chance was to keep the fight grounded with him on top.

He also had to finish the fight sooner rather than later.

Bruce switched his hips around as the Quds officer rotated into an all-fours position, ready to stand.

Barely above him, Bruce clawed onto his enemy’s back like a wounded jaguar onto a caiman.

Bruce punched his arm in for a Hadaka Jime—rear-naked choke—only for the Persian to grasp his strangle arm with both hands, rolling both combatants to face the Dagestan sky.

Bruce switched his strangling arm, walking his fingers across the chest.

However, with the damage to his knee rendering his leg lifeless, he could not hook his foot on the inside of the thrashing opponent’s thigh to secure him into place.

He began to lose control, his prey threatening to become the predator.

Bruce retracted his strangle arm as he turned on top of Khalimov, punched it under the armpit and back around the throat and connected his hands.

With his enemy’s arm trapped between their faces, Bruce squeezed the ‘head and arm triangle’ choke with all his might.

The Scotsman endured the ineffectual punches against the side of his skull and ratcheted the choke tighter.

Relief washed through him as his antagonist went limp.

He considered killing him but reckoned on the intelligence value they might glean.

He released the hold like a mother backing out of the room of a baby she had just put to sleep.

Bruce pulled his fatigue-wracked body into a sitting position and reached back into his webbing but could only find a single set of looped cable ties.

He understood the others must have come out during the fight.

The pain in his knee protested his every move as he pulled and pushed the unconscious Khalimov onto his front, pulling his arms out to secure the wrists behind his back.

Next, he looked around for his displaced PRR, spotting it fifteen metres away, the sniper rifle approximately four metres beyond.

He reached over and removed Khalimov’s boots, throwing them in either direction—neither made it very far.

Bruce began the leopard crawl to his communications set. The agony of his knee seemed to lengthen the distance fourfold.

He had to get to the radio—he couldn’t risk shouting, as he didn’t want to risk attracting potential enemy.

Hearing a groan, he shot his head around to see Khalimov coming to.

He dragged his body harder through the knee-stabbing foliage.

The Scotsman realised his mistake a split second before it happened—Khalimov began shouting in Arabic.

He knew the likelihood was that Connor and Ibrahim wouldn’t get to him in time anyway.

Then the thought occurred to him—he’d just be sentencing them to death by drawing them to the position.

An armed man, who looked like he hailed from the Caucasus, burst from the treeline, pointing an AK-133 at him.

Khalimov shouted what Bruce recognised to be an order.

Instead of shooting him, the AK-133 ran towards him.

A rough hand tore the PRR from his grasp.

The enemy combatant handled him with brutal professionalism, flipping him onto his front, a knee pinning him in the lower back.

Bruce could hear Khalimov searching for his boots.

The Scotsman guessed that when he found them, the Iranian wouldn’t be taking prisoners.

All things considered, he didn’t think it a bad way to go.

Umar felt the tar of anxiety as Khalimov once again failed the radio check-in.

And neither had Magomed or Imran.

Not only that but around ten minutes ago, the distant light of the convoy seemed to stop moving.

Umar had observed through his Hikmicro Binoculars what he thought were the drivers changing over and also some of the passengers taking the opportunity to relieve themselves.

His relief came when the convoy started moving again, albeit at a glacial pace. Why it had taken ten minutes, he didn’t know.

He had five men at his disposal: the javelin operator, a sniper and three on rear security.

Outside of Khalimov, Magomed and Imran, the rest of Inghimasi formed the ambush squad.

Initially, Umar felt the three on rear security excessive given their numbers, but Khalimov had explained his position to be the most important until the moment the front and rear vehicles were taken out.

Without Khalimov’s more precise estimates coming over the net, Umar guessed that the convoy would arrive in the ambush zone in just shy of twenty minutes.

What to do? If he set a party off now, they could conceivably reach Khalimov’s position. But what then? If Khalimov had been compromised, two men wouldn’t be able to wrest the position back. If the Russians had taken the position, they would have seen the muzzle flashes and the barrel reports.

Maybe it was simply a case of the hills and forest creating a communications black hole—Khalimov himself had stated his disappointment that they had not been issued the KAMAND radios designed explicitly for mountainous and hard-to-access terrains; for their team’s communications, they had the CNR-9000s in addition to their more short-range tactical communication HIMERA G1 Pros.

Maybe they needed another battery—his team had two.

Khalimov couldn’t orchestrate the battlefield if he couldn’t communicate—if Umar restored his communications, then surely that would be the right thing to do?

Umar pushed his pressel. “Lizard, proceed to my position immediately.”

“On my way.”

Within two minutes, Busivar appeared in a kneeling position beside him.

“I want you to take Mavlet over to Khalimov’s position. I cannot raise communications with him or his team.”

“Compromised?”

“I am not certain,” admitted Umar. “Watch yourself. Report back.”

Busivar disappeared to carry out the orders.

42

Bruce heard the clacks of suppressed shots.

The knee pressure in his lower back immediately left, and the AK-133 and its owner fell in front of him.

Bruce rolled to his side to see Connor ghost walking towards him, sweeping his arcs with Ibrahim behind.

Ibrahim swept in front of them as Connor knelt.

“You OK?”

Bruce spun his head around and said, “He’s gone.”

“Who?”

“Khalimov,” said Bruce. “Ibrahim, take up your arcs behind me.”

Ibrahim did so, and Connor said, “I didn’t see anyone else.”

“He was here,” said Bruce as he forced himself into a sitting position. “The knee has dislocated. I didn’t have time to pop it back in.”

“The new one? Don’t those things come with a warranty?”

Bruce grimaced as he straightened out the leg to the point of peak tension before an eye-watering ‘pop’ indicating it was back in place.

“Wrap an FFD around it?”

“Better than nothing,” Bruce agreed, reaching into his webbing pouch.

He wrapped it around his knee as Connor took up his arcs.

He tightened it to discomfort but not pain before swallowing his pride and accepting Connor’s helping arm.

“The convoy won’t be far off the ambush position. There is a Snipex Alligator anti-material rifle just over there.”

Connor said, “I can jump on it and thin the ambush party out.”

“No, you and Ibrahim need to get to the second hill crest—that’s where they’ll be firing the Starstreak from,” said Bruce. “Ibrahim, grab the Alligator. Connor, help me to the crest of the hill. Hopefully, we have time.”

The two men began carrying out his orders.

As the Scotsman limped along with the support of his favoured agent’s shoulder, Connor said, “If the ambush party is large enough, then they are going to send men here when the men back there don’t report in. You know that, don’t you?”

“They won’t stop the mission, though, but we can,” said Bruce.

As they reached the sniper position, Connor asked, “How are you going to defend yourself on your own?”

Bruce ignored him, pulled out an R-187 Azart tactical radio and handed it to Connor.

“I’ve pre-set the communication line to Orlov’s recovery team. After it’s done, open a line of communication and keep repeating ‘Paket bezopasnyy’ followed by the GLONASS reference. Then just extract—I’ll make my own way.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? You’re not going anywhere fast with your knee like that. Unless you’re planning on doing a Leonardo DiCaprio in ‘The Revenant’ back to… well, back to fucking nowhere, there isn’t a ‘safe’ country you can go to.”

“I am not going anywhere.”

“No, I am not fucking having this. I can work the sniper rifle and—”

“Don’t be so fucking stupid. I—”

“No, you’re being stupid. If you’re left here, you will be killed by either these ISIS head-the-balls or some fucking Russian soldier sweeping through after the fact. And if they don’t kill you, you’ll be in some fucking FSB cell off your face on whatever drugs they’ll pump into you—and it was you who told me that every man breaks eventually.”

“I won’t let them take me alive.”

Connor slid from beneath his arm, fronting him to look him in the eye.

“I am not going anywhere until you promise me you won’t martyr yourself unless you have to.”

Bruce, knowing time was of the essence, said, “OK, I promise.”

Though bloodied and bruised, Khalimov knew Allah had spared him.

If his boots had not been thrown, he might not have been concealed when the gunmen appeared and murdered Magomed.

He had run down the mountainside, using the forest—the war veteran knew speed would be a better friend to him than stealth would now.

With no communications, he knew he needed to reach the ambush squad to pry away enough soldiers to attack the now-defunct overwatch position.

The Quds officer couldn’t decipher who they were—if they had been Russians, why wasn’t the entire place alive with Spetsnaz?

Why hadn’t there been the sounds of gunfire or air support?

Unless his position was the first taken by stealth?

But as Khalimov began to reach the valley floor and skirt the inside of the treeline, he could still see the lights of the convoy moving towards them.

Why hadn’t it halted if they had been compromised?

Just before the trees grew sparser, Khalimov prostrated himself into a prone position and mentally prepared himself for the arduous crawl to the ambush squad.

He just prayed that none of his men got so overzealous as to shoot without identifying him first.

Connor attempted to block out his emotions by focusing on stalking through the forest.

He’d left a man who had done so much for him on a hillside, on his own, potentially at the mercy of an ISIS hit squad.

But the old bastard was right—this was the best way.

Except for his new bird and his nieces, thought Connor.

Despite the time pressure, they patrolled cautiously through the forest due to their lack of knowledge of the enemy’s precise location on the hill crest.

They moved as far apart as they dared without losing sight of one another.

Before departing, he and Ibrahim had decided against wearing night vision goggles, their NVGs having limited peripherals.

Though Ibrahim hadn’t complained of his injury and showed no signs of being affected by it, Connor knew that might not be the case under combat conditions.

Though not exactly wet behind the ears, Connor realised that Ibrahim’s patrolling skills fell a little short of his own as the Englishman heard the crunch of foliage and the sound of saplings scoring off Ibrahim’s combat jacket.

Still, Connor surmised that there might not be many men in the world who exceeded his skill level—though the Finns that took him on his advanced FIWAF course certainly did.

Connor’s eyes picked out a path through the forest that afforded him the most cover should they come under contact from their front.

He remembered that as a sprog Marine, a highly professional corporal—who went on to become badged—told him to develop a mental bird’s eye view of the space he was in, as the best cover might be behind him.

He caught the movement on Ibrahim’s side and snapped a fist up.

Ibrahim appropriately knelt and froze before looking to Connor, who signalled the direction of the enemy, though he couldn’t yet tell how many.

If he let them pass, they would almost certainly kill Bruce. Connor knew to risk millions of lives to save a man who accepted dying to save those same lives would be dishonourable and selfish.

They would probably not reach Bruce before the triggering of the ambush, and by then, the former SAS soldier might have already done as much damage as he would be able with the sniper rifle.

But he might not—from a purely professional standpoint, an overwatch sniper was an asset.

And dead enemy were fewer enemy.

Through a series of hand signals, they agreed that Ibrahim would stay in place as Connor swung a wide arc.

He cut through the wood in silence, steadying his breathing while acknowledging to himself this could be a ‘come on’ to trap them in an ambush.

He kept the suppressed AK-74 up on aim to his front while being aware of his surroundings.

The black operations agent used the trees to cover his approach.

He picked up a silhouette around fifteen metres to his eleven o’clock before it disappeared again.

Reed skirted around and decided to take the soldier out.

He whipped around the next tree to take up his sights, only to witness an assault rifle levelled at his face.

43

Busivar knew he had seen something but had still been surprised by the appearance of an enemy combatant so close.

More so by the speed of the man.

The barrel of the soldier’s assault rifle whipped into his, deflecting it away in the same instant a boot catapulted him onto his back.

The ghost-like figure swept arcs towards Mavlet, clacking off a round.

Busivar caught the pink dust burst from Mavlet’s head as his compatriot collapsed.

The killer then disappeared like a phantom.

He can only be behind the tree, thought Busivar.

Keeping his weapon pointing at the tree the best he could, he reached for a grenade located in his chest rig.

Then, one bounced within two metres of his head.

He scrambled to his feet and made for the nearest tree.

The bullet disintegrated the top of his skull.

He collapsed and rolled onto his side—still conscious, he saw the blue eyes of the man who then shot him dead.

Umar tried to hold his nerves as the convoy crept closer.

He expected Busivar to have been in touch by now—but if the sniper position was indeed a communications black hole, then he wouldn’t have heard from them until they physically came back… if they came back.

And there hadn’t been any sounds of gunfire.

He could not just keep sending men—not that he could anyway; the convoy would be within the killing zone soon enough.

He banished it from his mind and focused on the drills to operate the Starstreak.

Ibrahim walked into the scene to see Connor picking up a grenade off the ground.

The Englishman must have seen his puzzled expression because he said, “I didn’t pull the pin because we don’t know how many are out here. I just needed to flush him out.”

Ibrahim nodded. “What now?”

The sound of a giant firework whooshed in the sky.

Connor barked, “That’s the Starstreak.”

Their earpieces sparked with Bruce’s voice.

“Standby for enemy grid.”

“Roger, send it.”

Bruce did so, and the pair set it on their watches.

Connor looked at him. “No patrolling now—we just need to run as fast as possible. Got it?”

Ibrahim nodded before breaking into a near sprint as Connor tore away.

In less than fifty metres, the Israeli found himself struggling to keep up—both with the wound pulling at him with pain and Connor’s speed—but he tore on.

He couldn’t explain it, but something about the Englishman took the edge off Ibrahim’s fear of what they were about to do.

After around ninety seconds, the Englishman slowed and snapped up his fist.

When Ibrahim took up a position out to the left, Connor’s hand signal indicated three enemy, to which he concurred.

The three hid in shell scrapes behind sandbags stacked three high—with the centre position holding a PKM on a tripod behind a steel shield.

Connor signalled to Ibrahim that they withdraw.

They did so to around twenty metres, and Connor’s low voice sounded in his earpiece, “Swing around to the right so that you are ninety degrees to them. Engage them. I will land grenades behind them—find a big tree, though.”

“OK. Out,” replied Ibrahim.

The Israeli cut through the forest with as much speed as he could, less concerned with stealth.

The saplings whacked against his jacket, and the crunching underfoot came up as if warning him to slow down.

Almost at the point where he’d chosen to stalk in, the machine gun spat metallic fury all around him.

He leapt and dived for the tree. He stood, turning himself side on, unsure if the trunk covered him completely.

A kick to his webbing spun him a quarter before he quickly righted himself.

He heard a grenade explode. Then another.

The firing slowed considerably but didn’t stop.

Connor’s voice came through his earpiece, “Sitrep?”

“I am OK. Three magazines.”

“Right, we will fire and manoeuvre a pincer through the position. The machine gunner has been taken out, but the other two are still active.”

“OK, over.”

“I’ll fire first. Ready?”

“Ready.”

The clacks of Connor’s suppressed AK-74 cut through the air.

“Move.”

Ibrahim burst from cover, zigzagging to a tree ten metres to his one o’clock, ignoring the pain from his wound.

The Israeli snaked the barrel from cover and fired a burst whilst pressing the pressel.

“Move.”

He fired another couple of bursts before dropping to one knee and firing a couple more.

He picked out the additional firing, and Connor’s voice shouted, “Move.”

Ibrahim thought he heard Connor’s voice in the air and the earpiece.

As he burst from cover, he saw Connor firing on the move. Ibrahim began to do the same.

They converged on the position, and the Mossad agent saw two of the soldiers dead, with one incapacitated, writhing with a blood-frothed mouth.

The sudden disintegration of his jaw jarred him for a moment as Connor fired a single shot to the face.

“Cover me while I collect any grenades off them. You need any?”

“Negative,” replied Ibrahim, pointing his AK towards the hill’s crest.

Connor seemed to move the bodies around like crash test dummies.

“I am all set,” said Connor, standing up. “Let’s go.”

They covered and manoeuvred up the hill using the Leap Frog method.

Ibrahim’s thighs burned and lungs screamed as he charged the incline.

Connor stopped them just before they crested the hill, and Ibrahim sucked for fear-laced oxygen.

The British agent ripped open his webbing pouch, produced and activated a grenade, waiting two seconds before launching it over the crest.

On the ‘B’ of the bang, he leapt forward to crest the hill with Connor.

The Englishman, much quicker, began to fire as he scrambled to join him.

A mallet-like impact struck Ibrahim square in the chest, and he tumbled back down the hill.

Connor brought his sights down on the sniper and fired a double tap.

He bounded forward, aware that Ibrahim would most likely be dead.

The fighter behind the Starstreak began to level his AK at Connor, but at least a second too late, Connor drilled him with a single shot to the forehead.

The black ops agent skidded in beside the missile launcher.

Connor had never fired one before—the nearest he had come had been during familiarisation training with a Javelin anti-tank system in the Marines, overseen by the members of his company’s anti-tank—’Tankies’—section.

He peered over the hillside—two BTRs lay front and rear of the centre vehicles, blocking them in.

Connor couldn’t see the bodies he had anticipated around the centre vehicle.

And though he could hear shots being fired, he couldn’t see the ambush party either.

And between the shots, Connor thought he could hear a helicopter approaching.

That was fast, he thought.

He opened communications with Bruce.

“Alpha One, this is Bravo Two, over.”

“Send.”

Connor concisely gave him a sitrep.

After the correct VP, Bruce said, “Listen to me, Connor. I haven’t called that helicopter in. I think that the ambushers have called it in. Whoever is left in that vehicle is in on it.”

“It’s going to airlift the bomb out?”

“Yes,” said Bruce. “That’s why the ambush party has left them to take out this position.”

“I can use the Starstreak to thin them out before—”

“We can’t risk using it now. If the helicopter has any attack capability and the Starstreak is reported to have fallen into enemy’s hands, they will take you out.”

“What the fuck are you saying? I have to sit here doing fuck all as they come to kill you?”

“That’s exactly what you are going to do,” said Bruce. “The helicopter will probably lift the entire vehicle as the device container is too heavy to waste time lifting it out by hand. Wait until it’s lifted high. I can look after myself.”

“Won’t that risk setting it off—a fall from height?”

“They don’t work like that. But if the vehicle is damaged beyond drivability, they won’t be able to get the radiological weapon out. Don’t fuck this up.”

Connor could hear the rounds coming through his earpiece.

“I won’t.”

44

Khalimov held his patience steady—though he guessed the enemy sniper to be in range of his fire team’s weapon systems, he wanted to be closer to ensure their accuracy.

The crawl through the ravine had been long and arduous, and the crawl after collecting an assault team doubly so.

He had been glad of the martyrs he had at his disposal to distract the sniper’s attention away from him—there had been more than one shallowing of the ravine sides that might have afforded the sniper a view of his fire team.

Another fifty metres, and he’d break them out.

They needed to deal with this threat now.

The inbound Mil Mi-26 heavy transport helicopter would likely abandon the operation if fired on by snipers.

And Khalimov had not informed its crew of their entering a hot zone—they hadn’t come this far just for a Russian crew, hearts already bent by money, not idealism, to abandon the mission.

His elbows dragged while his boots pushed, slithering his body through the ravine.

His entire being screamed at him to rest, but that was OK; Khalimov had ignored such pleas many, many times before.

He had picked the breakout point before he initiated the crawl and could see the triple stone berry-like structure ahead.

The Quds officer rolled onto his side to signal to the others, being pleased that they had, for the most part, stayed with him.

He indicated that they neared the breakout point and should spread out beyond it.

Preferring to lead from nearer the centre, he held his position as three of his men scraped past him.

He thought he could hear the helicopter.

Now, all in position, he signalled that they should check their webbing and weapons.

Then he gave the signal to attack.

The five on the left broke out first, zigzagging as they stormed forward up the embankment before stopping into a kneel.

Only then did Khalimov’s team do the same, bounding past the left-side team.

The Mil Mi-26 appeared, zooming towards the vehicle.

Now, the danger point—the cresting of the ridge.

Khalimov, as his duty as leader, lengthened his team’s bound so that it would be him braving the danger first.

He fired as he came over the brow.

No one—just an abandoned Snipex Alligator rifle.

“Keep spread, push forward.”

They did so, still bounding in fire teams but slower now.

Khalimov didn’t like the atmosphere.

The Mil Mi-26 hovered over the RITVERC JSC converted Volkswagen Transporter.

He might have sensed it before he saw the grenade fly from the tree line to his right.

“Grenade,” he screamed, running forward for the cover of a tree.

He barely made it, feeling the grenade’s percussive whiplash through his chest.

He scrambled to his feet to see that two of his men had been caught.

Khalimov screamed, “Enemy, twenty metres, left of big tree, rapid fire!”

The shooting built up as the rest of the team skidded around to face the target.

The fighter beside him flew back with the impact of a round.

“Spread out,” he bellowed, as he could see them converging on the big tree.

He had positioned himself so he’d face the immediate danger head-on.

As he came closer, he saw a figure lying on the ground.

Ordinarily, Khalimov would have double-tapped him to the head as he went over to him.

However, the soldier might prove a valuable source of intelligence.

“Push past three bounds,” he instructed his men. “Adid, stay with me.”

Khalimov trained his AK 133 on the man, who remained alive despite having clearly caught more than one bullet.

As he came closer, he could see it to be the man who fought and strangled him unconscious.

Now able to study him, the man seemed older than the Iranian expected, maybe reaching fifty. Western European white.

Unsure what language to address him in, Khalimov tried English, “Who are you?”

The man crooked his jaw into his collar and asked in the same tongue, “Now that it doesn’t matter, given my condition, could you tell me where you think Rephidim got all his information?”

Khalimov surmised the man must be a naturalised Israeli or at least a Jew recruited by them.

And the man was correct; he’d be dead soon—a sense of honour in the Iranian urged him to indulge the man.

Khalimov answered in English, “Maybe an anti-Zionist within the Israeli intelligence services. I was sceptical at first, but all the successful attacks in recent years have been down to him. He is Allah’s oracle.”

“Or maybe he made you an employee of the Israelis.”

The man saying ‘the Israelis’ made Khalimov doubt his earlier assumption.

Khalimov’s heart soared as he saw the transporter already a few metres in the air.

“All I know is that weapon will find itself in the hands of the Redwan forces, who will ensure it finds its way to Tel Aviv, and they will take the blame—it will be uninhabitable for years, just as your people have attempted to make Gaza uninhabitable.”

“Are you sure the bomb will go off there, Khalimov?”

The Quds officer’s vocal cords took a moment to thaw, “You know my name.”

“Yes, and I know it’s not over until the fat lady sings, Alkhalid.”

A whizzing whoosh of another Starstreak missile sounded.

The explosion lit his fallen adversary for a moment before his darkening matched the one in Khalimov’s heart.

“If he moves, shoot him,” Khalimov ordered Adid.

He turned around to see the smoking, hole-blown Mil Mi-26 falling from the sky.

The transporter crashed first, rolling from a rectangle into crumpled, debris-flying twisted pieces of steel.

The Mi-26 smashed on top of it in a volcano of liquid fire.

Khalimov felt like a blade of ice had scythed through his stomach.

Behind him, his adversary’s voice said calmly, “Maybe you have the apparatus to cut through two inches of hardened steel. If not, then I suggest you fuck off and lick your wounds, Khalimov, before the Russian authorities finally shift their arses to get here.”

Rage flooded Khalimov, but he refused to let his enemy see.

Instead, he looked at him and said, “You understand that I cannot leave witnesses.”

The man met his eyes without fear, “Naturally.”

The ISIS soldier removed his combat knife.

Elation shot through Connor’s veins as the Mi-26 fell from the sky.

He dismissed it, turned, and ran, all the while failing to raise Bruce on the radio.

No longer concerned with stealth, he charged down the hill, cutting in different angles in case he had sights trained on him.

Relief washed through him on seeing Ibrahim struggling up off his knees.

Connor reached him, “You OK.”

“Yes. Caught it in the vest. Must have concussed myself in the fall because I lost consciousness.”

Connor said, “No broken bones from the tumble?”

“I think it is just bruising.”

“I managed to shoot down the helicopter with the transporter attached. I doubt that weapon is going anywhere now. Bruce held the position.”

“So, we have prevented a global war.”

“Well,” said Connor. “We have at least delayed it.”

“You don’t have to ask me,” said Ibrahim, as if reading Connor’s mind. “Of course I will help you to retrieve him—dead or alive.”

“It’s probably the former.”

Khalimov decided it would be better to take the man prisoner.

If he could keep his head for this failure, it might be partly due to the intelligence this man could provide.

The man couldn’t be working on behalf of the non-conspirator Russians; he would have contacted them, and a Spetsnaz or an FSB Spetsgruppa “A” Alpha Group would have been on hand to ambush Khalimov’s men.

Khalimov knew there must be a treasure trove of information inside his head—and they might be able to turn him with enough time.

He had the man searched for weapons and his wounds strapped tight with First Field Dressings.

They began to drag their captive through the forest and down the hillside.

Khalimov warned them to keep the formation with, “Whoever has used the missile launcher against the helicopter might be coming back here.”

Adid asked, “Did our people betray us, Qayid? Or are they outsiders?”

The thought hadn’t occurred to Khalimov that an insider might have penetrated his unit. He said, “It does not matter now. Enemies are enemies.”

After securing, gagging and removing the boots of their captive, his Inghimasi stalked down off the crest like a warship.

They reached the vehicles to find them intact.

Khalimov opened his mouth to issue the orders to extract when a thought stopped him.

Adid said, with an edge of worry, “What is it, my Qayid?”

“We might be able to retrieve the bomb.”

A ghost mask of fear washed over Adid’s face before he said, “I understood that the bomb was in a steel box too heavy to transport by a civilian vehicle?”

“Maybe we can unlock the casing,” mused Khalimov, almost to himself.

“Qayid, I am with you, but what is more important? Our captive and what is in his brain, or the bomb? Remember you told us that when you chase two rabbits—”

Khalimov finished the proverb, “Both will escape.”

The logic of the adage brought him back to his senses.

“You are right, Adid,” said Khalimov before raising his voice. “Split into pairs. One covers, the other loads the vehicles. Then let’s go.”

45

Connor noted how few there seemed to be compared to the vehicles left.

He surmised that Bruce must have been exceptional with the sniper rifle.

Connor knew that if Bruce remained alive, to have any chance of saving him, he needed to Blitzkrieg to overwhelm them.

Connor made eye contact with Ibrahim and nodded.

The Israeli threw the grenade, as per Connor’s orders, but away from the target area as neither could see where McQuillan was.

Ibrahim remained on the perimeter, putting down covering fire.

Connor ran in and shot the first fighter in the face as he popped his head up after the grenade’s detonation.

He skirted around and saw the empty boots in the back of a black Hilux.

It momentarily distracted him as another fighter brought a light submachine gun to bear.

Connor ducked the death scythe but realised as he listened to the Arabic shouts that he had isolated himself.

He could feel a killer ring enclosing him.

An amplified intensity of fire.

Firing stops.

The sound of running steps.

“Connor, it’s me. We are clear.”

The Englishman stood as Ibrahim stepped towards him.

“Let’s check the back of these Hiluxes.”

Connor felt a blast of blended emotions—relief that they had found him.

Anxiety regarding the pain fatigue on his mentor’s face.

His captors had stripped him of his boots, and he was bare from the waist up.

Still, as Connor and Ibrahim hauled the older man upright and untied the rag gagging him, Bruce asked, “Dead-checks?”

“No,” admitted Connor, embarrassed that his elation on finding him alive had superseded his professionalism. “I’ll do them now. Take this.”

The Englishman pushed his pistol into the Scotsman’s hand, who now stood into his boots, before turning for the Hilux’s door.

Connor found himself flying to the ground courtesy of Bruce’s violent shove.

He felt the whiplash of the sound barrier breaking over his head.

The noise of gunfire.

Connor crouched and, without looking back, bellowed, “Hold them.”

Using the vehicles to skirt around, he found the enemy—a jagged line of three.

Connor crept towards them. He had never knowingly shot a man in the back before.

The Englishman shot two in the back of the head.

The last spun just as Connor lined up on his right knee.

He instantly recognised him as Khalimov.

Both fired.

Both fell.

Khalimov onto his face. Connor onto his back.

Both craned their heads to look at one another.

Both brought their weapons to bear.

Except Khalimov’s disintegrated on being smashed by Connor’s burst, with its metallic shards knifing into his face.

Connor screamed, “Cease fire. Cease fire.”

It did so.

He scrambled to his feet and ran at the ISIS leader.

As Khalimov reached into one of his webbing pouches, Connor crucified him with a shot to both elbows and each knee.

Connor stood over him and shouted, “Ibrahim. Bruce. Clear. On me.”

“Just kill me,” said Khalimov. “I cannot even fight to the death now.”

“You know you’ll lose your gnarly nickname, don’t you, Immortal?”

He watched Khalimov smile weakly and say, “That is a legend—and legends are immortal.”

Connor looked at him for a moment, considering the options.

He nodded and unsheathed his commando dagger.

“May you rest in peace, Mosen Khalimov, since men like us never seem to live in it.”

“You too,” said the Iranian as Connor clasped the back of his neck.

Connor punched the blade through the breastplate into his enemy’s heart.

The warmth of the blood cascaded over his hand with Khalimov’s wide-eyed curdling.

Having no wish to prolong it, Connor jimmied the blade before sliding it out.

Claret pumped from the wound as he lay the now shock-unconscious Iranian’s head down.

He knew he’d be dead within a few minutes.

Ibrahim appeared, “I’ve swept the area—we are good.”

“Where’s Bruce?”

“He’s where we left him,” said Ibrahim with a look Connor didn’t like. “You should go and see him.”

46

It had taken Bruce a monumental effort to drag himself into a sitting position against the Hilux.

He had known instantly on the impact of several 7.62MM rounds hammering his torso that he would die here in the mountains of Dagestan.

He had imagined derivatives of this scenario many times since he began his military career around four decades ago.

The irony being he hadn’t thought about it when being shot in the kneecap had supposedly taken him out of field operations.

And in the last year, the death visions had changed to him as an old man surrounded by Adriana, his sister and nieces.

He hadn’t expected his senses to be heightened to this degree: the crackles of the leaves, the evening sky kissing him with the crisp air between the branches, the smell of propellant blending with the tree bark and earth.

The sound of running boots chopped through him.

Connor skidded into a kneeling position in front of him.

His rapid breathing and the ripping open of his webbing seemed loud, fuelling the strength into Bruce to snap an iron grip on the younger man’s wrist.

Connor exclaimed with emotion-driven vocal cords, “What the fuck are you doing? I am grabbing an FFD. You’re bleeding out.”

“I am not going to make it. I want to go without you touching me up.”

“I can hear the helicopter coming now,” said Connor, twisting his wrist from the grasp.

Anger zapped energy in the Scotsman.

“Stop and fucking listen to me, Connor,” snapped Bruce. “I’ve been hit multiple times, and that helicopter is too far away to save me, even if it magically had a trauma team on it.”

His words momentarily turned Connor into a gargoyle.

Bruce’s lungs clawed for oxygen as he collected his thoughts for what he wanted to say.

“You remember what I said when you asked me what our remit is?”

“Yeah,” said Connor softly. “To buy humanity time to get its act together.”

“That’s right,” said Bruce. “I want you to do me a few favours.”

Connor, straight-faced, said, “I am not sucking your cock. Ibrahim might see.”

Blood-foamed laughter racked Bruce’s body before he could catch it in time.

With a force of will, he calmed and said, “You haven’t earned that privilege, son.”

“What’re these favours?”

“I want you to remind Ciara to check in on my sister and nieces occasionally. And Adriana.”

“Done.”

“And I want you to support Ciara with whatever she needs, for as long as she needs—until she can find an appropriate replacement.”

“You mean until the wheels fall off.”

“Whichever comes first.”

Connor said, “I thought you might try tempting me to leave this all behind and focus on the family life?”

“You’re too good at this,” said Bruce. “Besides, this isn’t a bad way to go for men like us—with our boots on.”

He watched Connor’s chest rise and fall before the younger man confirmed his oath with a nod, “I’ll support her for as long as she needs.”

As the sound of the helicopter drew closer, Bruce raised his open hand as his senses began to dull.

When the warmth of Connor’s hand grasped his, it became the last sensation he could focus on.

It became his deceased father’s hand, who pulled him up into an embrace.

His mother appeared and flung her arms around the pair of them.

47

Naftali Avidan’s shoulders relaxed with a sense of anticipation.

The black Bentley Continental GT prowled up the smooth road after accessing the security gates of the Red Admiral Baths and Spa.

He knew he could have one installed in his Tuscan-style home in the Neve Tzedek neighbourhood of Tel Aviv—indeed, Sofia had been angling for one, and he knew he’d have to cave.

However, ever since his cancer had begun to recede, Naftali had committed to doing more of what he liked, and he enjoyed being made a fuss of by the staff here, even if the drive into the Hebron Hills took the best part of an hour.

Though still weak from his final session of chemo, they hadn’t given him nearly as severe a dose as his previous sessions, and he felt remarkably chipper.

Perhaps the knowledge of his freedom from it buoyed his entire being.

And it remained one of the few places that Ethan wouldn’t insist on clearing before he walked in. Instead, his protection officer and, on this occasion, driver would call ahead to check that if any members had joined since Avidan’s last visit, they were not present.

Indeed, the Red Admiral’s policy of cooperation with the security services meant that several high-level intelligence agency officers had a membership in addition to Israel’s wealthy and powerful.

If they were, he’d check them out, but if not, Ethan usually waited in the Bentley, watching the main entrance like he would now.

The GT crept backwards into its designated parking spot and stopped.

“I am going for the full works, Ethan,” he said to make him aware he’d be between two and a half hours.

The brute in a suit nodded his acknowledgement, and Avidan got out.

The reception doubled as a bar with an array of beverages, including bottles of whisky Avidan guessed to be in the thousands of US dollars.

The bespectacled brunette with gym-hewn, tanned arms displayed by the sleeveless shirt greeted him with a flashing smile.

The amber lighting highlighted her sharp features and the low music created a pleasant ambience.

“Mister Avidan, you’re looking better and better as the weeks go by.”

Though he hadn’t told anyone but his wife and the prime minister, Avidan guessed that his cancer diagnosis and subsequent progress in beating it was an open secret within certain circles.

Either that, or she was flirting with him.

“Thank you, Julia,” he said.

“We have a new girl named Leah. She knows your preference of using the sauna and then showering before your massage.”

She must have spotted his micro expression because she said quickly, “Your people have vetted her.”

Calmed, he nodded. “OK, Julia, thank you.”

Avidan made his way to the changing room, stripped down, and secured his belongings before wrapping one towel around his waist and throwing one over his shoulder.

A glass door joined the sauna and the cold plunge rooms; Avidan had quickly come to enjoy the icy charge of immersing in the water after a stint in the sauna.

He sat and relaxed.

His calmness surprised him—he had initiated a chain of events that would see the constant and soon apocalyptic threat of Iran removed via a war that would see them bombed into the Stone Age.

He guessed his tranquillity stemmed from the fact that there wasn’t anything he could do now.

Rephidim thought he had gone ‘dark’, but Avidan knew he had booked a ticket to Australia. The Mossad chief lacked the motivation to dispatch surveillance on him, as the motorcycle mechanic had fulfilled his role.

And he and the new SVR director had agreed to cut contact for a while.

There was nothing he could do but wait.

In a way, Avidan had been glad of his cancer diagnosis. Originally, the doctors had estimated his chances of survival to be low, and it was for that reason he had dared implement this plan.

Avi Teper and Beni Mizrahi were simply pawns to strike the decisive blow for the Jewish people.

The door steamed open.

His heart jolted, and it took him a moment to say, “Ah, Raz, I did not expect you here.”

He stood and shook the Caesarea chief’s hand.

He felt strangely vulnerable in this setting, looking at the thickly corded physique of the man who could kill him.

“You know I am a member, surely?”

“Yes, of course,” said Avidan as they sat. “But your arrival was not on the list for today.”

Raz smiled at him. “I wanted us to talk in a setting where you would not fear audio devices.”

Avidan felt his heart sink an inch.

“What do you wish to talk about?”

“You providing intelligence to allow our enemies to massacre our civilians and then concocting a plan to explode a radiological weapon on Israeli soil,” said Raz without emotion. “I mean, I believe I know—I still trust you to be a patriot, but I have to know for sure.”

The Mossad chief felt a fusion of emotions. Anger at being so brazenly confronted by a subordinate. Fear of the potential consequences of admittance.

And finally, relief of the unburdening of the secret.

“Our people have become weak under the decades of relative freedom from violence that our ancestors were never afforded, you know that.”

Raz nodded. “That I do.”

“Iran will never stop. You know this, Raz. They unveiled that clock in Palestine Square, declaring it to be a countdown to our destruction in 2040, all the while planning on it much earlier.”

“Is that why you provided the Quds Force intelligence to pass on to HAMAS that led to hundreds of our people being killed, wounded or kidnapped?”

“The attack was never meant to get that far, Raz—it simply had to be large enough to warrant our dealing with these tunnel rats. My heart was broken when I saw the scale of death and destruction—I live with that guilt every day.”

“If you feel that guilty, then why have you planned on a radiological bomb to be exploded in Tel Aviv.”

Avidan laughed despite himself, “That bomb will go off nowhere near Israel—it is destined for Saudi Arabia.”

The older man then held up his hands and squeezed them into fists, “After the evidence is disclosed that it is of Iranian manufacture, the Saudis and the US will fund our Air Force’s surgical strikes against every known military and industrial infrastructure in Iran—our greatest enemy will be demolished back into the third world. HAMAS and Hezbollah will weaken and be annihilated by our forces. And the voices of the world’s weak liberals will be drowned out as the global media will show the devastating effects of the bomb.”

“When is the bomb due to go off?”

“Around two weeks.”

He met Raz’s stare for a few moments, who said, “I am not much of a scholar, Naftali, but I have been reading more than I ever used to, and this sounds like Pandora’s Box. Of course, when you planned it, you didn’t think you’d live to see the consequences.”

“I am not ashamed of what I have done—you remember the Babylonian Talmud—’If someone comes to kill you, rise and kill him first.’”

“Indeed,” answered the assassin chief.

“So,” said Naftali. “Where do we go from here?”

“Luckily for you, the Russians—the non-conspirators—want to handle this internally. The device has now been decommissioned, and no doubt certain people’s heads will roll,” said Raz. “The next intelligence council meeting is tomorrow. You will announce your intention to retire soon—you do not have to specify the date, but you will state in tomorrow’s meeting that it is your wish for me to succeed you. That is the price for my cooperation and silence.”

Avidan regarded Sharir for a few moments. Maybe the master assassin did not realise that Avidan’s fight with the deadly disease had made him more determined to continue, not less.

However, Raz hadn’t specifically suggested a specific date—just alluded to ‘the near future’.

If stating that at the meeting bought him time, then so be it.

The Mossad director nodded his ascent.

Raz stood, proffered his hand, they shook, and he left.

48

Two Weeks Later

Ciara stood with the four women that Bruce loved the most.

They watched the black Rolls-Royce Phantom hearse grow as it slid down the road towards Glasgow’s crematorium.

Adriana stood to her left, with Bruce’s sister and two nieces to her right.

Only the quiet sobs of the youngest niece could be heard.

Miles Parker had tasked Ciara to use her discretion in explaining McQuillan’s death to his loved ones. To her surprise, neither Adriana nor his sister, Sandra, hounded her for details, just stoically accepted it.

The burly Joe Waldron, a friend of Bruce’s since P-Company, approached the five women.

“Sandra,” he said simply to Bruce’s older sister before they embraced.

Still holding her, he reached out to the nieces, who joined their mother in his bear-like arms.

After a long moment, he released them, deftly using his thumb to wipe Millie’s tears.

He stepped to Adriana and said in his Shropshire drawl, “Ms Cruz, you must be some woman. I’ve never heard him talk about a woman like he spoke about you—the only woman he asked to marry.”

“Thank you, Mister Waldron,” she smiled. “I am Adriana to you.”

“It goes without saying I am Joe to you.”

He turned his attention to Ciara. “We’ll talk later, Miss Robson.”

“Certainly,” said Ciara.

Bruce had stated more than once that she needed to reach out to the former SAS sergeant major if anything ever happened to him.

Joe Waldron then took his place with the other straight-backed, keen-eyed men in their fifties standing in two rows of three facing one another like a Praetorian Guard.

Despite being darkly suited like the rest, Ciara knew they were Bruce’s friends from his time in the Regiment.

The rest of the funeral party stood off the right-hand side, the most conspicuous being Miles Parker due to his height and shiny dome.

Ciara hadn’t been sure exactly how, but the SIS chief had arranged with the Russian authorities to ensure Bruce’s body be extradited to the UK.

Connor had not stepped on British soil since he left for Ukraine.

Kevin O’Hara stood in attendance towards the back of the throng.

The Head of Scotland Yard, Kathryn Bainbridge, cut a dignified figure, despite Ciara sensing the emotion behind the eyes—emotions she also hid.

Adriana whispered, “I did not expect this many people given his… work.”

Bruce’s sister, Sandra, said, “Yep, he’d have hated it.”

“Well,” said Ciara, “I think part of him would have secretly liked it.”

She hadn’t mentioned there would have been more had she not put out the blanket order that no Chameleon Project agent was to attend.

“Possibly,” said Sandra with a weak smile.

The hearse crept into position before stopping.

The sobbing grew a touch louder but not much as the six hoisted the coffin upon their shoulders.

Ciara stood back under Adriana’s bemused gaze before Sandra linked arms with the Italian-Albanian and led her in behind the coffin.

Kathryn Bainbridge cut from the middle towards Ciara.

She spoke quietly, “The damned man just wouldn’t stay behind a desk, would he?”

“No.” Ciara smiled.

“He always knew he would might go out like this,” said Kathryn, handing her a card. “Contact me for anything, professionally or otherwise, officially or unofficially, day or night. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly.”

The rest of the crowd filed in, leaving Miles Parker and Kevin O’Hara.

Parker said, almost in passing, “It was as if he wouldn’t go until you were ready, Miss Robson.”

Parker strode in with the rest of the service members.

Ciara now stood alone with O’Hara, who said, “I am taking over D-Section.”

“He’d have wanted you to,” she said sincerely.

“He was a good man,” said O’Hara. “I’ll assist you as much as I can.”

“Thank you. The sentiment is mutual.”

He looked at her a moment.

“You know that revenge is unprofessional.”

“Of course,” she said. “But revenge and vengeance are not the same.”

Naftali Avidan sat in his favourite red leather recliner with a refreshing glass of Limonana—a blend of lemonade, mint and ice.

The memory of yesterday’s meeting still stung him; the sympathetic faces of the powerful attendees as he stated his wish for Raz Sharir to succeed him upon his retirement.

He hated being considered weak—and, amongst other things, he had defeated a deadly disease after all.

And more so, he hated that one of the most successful operations against Hezbollah would have been attributed more to Sharir than himself.

The synchronised exploding of pagers and walkie-talkies left around fifteen hundred Hezbollah fighters with identifying injuries and killing around thirty.

Both the idea and the mechanism of execution had been given to them almost a year and a half ago by Bruce McQuillan.

Avidan had not been able to contact the SIS asset to thank him, as Parker had stated the Scotsman was ‘away’.

With the Hezbollah leadership panicking, they would expose themselves to being targets.

Still, he consoled himself, knowing that the public would attribute Operation Grim Beeper to himself.

He felt warmth in his chest when the mobile oncology unit pulled up outside one of his living room windows.

He reminded himself to ask about the converted Mercedes Sprinter colour scheme of yellow and black—a combination that signalled ‘caution’ in nature.

Eliana Teper alighted with one of the new paramedic drivers that Ethan had already cleared.

Eliana had been coming to his residence for several months to provide him with chemotherapy at his home.

This time, it was just an intravenous dose of G-CSF and Vitamin C, which would complete his treatment.

The first cycle of chemo had been the worst—three nights in the hospital being dripped daily for twelve hours at a time with doxorubicin, known by its moniker ‘The Red Devil’.

The liquid had got its name for both its colour—which reminded him of a red soda named Faygo that he once drunk in the States—and because of its ‘evil’ side effects.

Mercifully, he had somehow kept his hair but experienced black eyes, pale skin, extreme fatigue and caught more colds in the intervening weeks than he’d had in his whole life.

The other cycles had not been nearly as bad, with Eliana coming around to his residence for the four-hour dosing of the drug.

The final, very mild blast had been performed in the hospital to facilitate his meeting with Avi Teper.

He thanked God those days were behind him.

Avidan had already locked Inbar and Lonah, his pair of Canaan bitches, in their kennels after a long brisk walk.

Eliana chimed the bell, and Avidan opened the door after disengaging from the various security measures.

She greeted him with the customary half hug and air kiss.

“Good to see you, Eliana,” he said, stepping back to allow them both access.

“I am so glad this is the last time I’ll be seeing you, but so sad at the same time.”

“You are telling me,” he laughed.

The man holding the metallic case remained outside, and Avidan ushered him in with, “Come in, young man.”

The Mossad chief guessed the sandy-haired, blue-eyed male nurse around his late twenties.

He sported sharp facial features, and deeply grooved forearms poking from a light blue tunic.

Avidan knew it wasn’t feasible that every young Israeli man be in the army. He guessed the nursing profession would attract a more effeminate personality.

“Thank you, sir,” said the man, the masculinity of the voice surprising Avidan a touch.

“Oh, an Englishman.”

“Yes, sir, on an exchange.”

“Looking to make it permanent?”

“Permanent is… a definitive word, sir,” said the man. “But you know what they say, ‘It’s the life in your years, not the years to your life.’”

“Very true,” said Avidan. “What’s your name?”

“Connor, sir.”

“You can call me Naftali,” he smiled. “Shall we?”

He led them across the marble floor to one of the guest rooms with the plush Ottoman bed and the glass dimmer roof.

The chairs on either side resembled the bed’s offspring with their same dark, velvety texture.

The nurses busied themselves, opening the box and setting up the apparatus.

“A change from the hospital,” said Connor, looking around with seeming admiration.

Naftali smiled in reply as he lay on the bed and offered Eliana his arm.

She applied the tourniquet, inspected the arm and wiped the area with an antiseptic wipe.

A phone rang, and Connor pulled a cell phone from his pocket.

He looked at Eliana and said, “It’s the department. What do you want me to say?”

“I’ll take it.” She scowled before flashing Avidan a smile. “Can you cannulate Mr Avidan?”

“Of course.”

Avidan felt a pinch of nerves, but as if sensing them, Eliana said, “If anything, Connor is better at this than I.”

The nurses exchanged the phone and needle, and Eliana left the room.

Connor removed the needle’s sheath and grasped the spy master’s hand like a potential suitor proposing to a maiden.

The needle entered the hand’s ridged vein almost painlessly.

Next, he connected the drip, and Avidan settled into the pillows and looked through the ceiling glass at the passing clouds.

After a minute, the spymaster found his hands barely moved despite his attempts to.

He went to speak, but his tongue wouldn’t form the shapes to make the words.

His hands ceased all movements as his heart rate increased.

But he remained alert and cognitively aware.

The following words turned Avidan’s blood to battery acid.

“You can’t move or speak because of the paralysing drug now in your system. Something ending with -nium or -rium—usually I am pretty good at remembering, but it’s been a hectic two weeks, what with helping stop your plan to set off a radiological bomb amongst a civilian population and watching my mentor lose his life in the process.”

The blue-eyed fiend smiled. “Raz Sharir had suggested levofentanyl. Or as some in the Caesarea say, ‘The Potion of the Gods,’ but I wanted to speak to you before you died.”

Avidan’s eyes darted rapidly, and he tried to scream for Eliana as his heart attempted to claw out of its chest.

As if reading his mind, Connor said conversationally, “Eliana is waiting outside. We concocted that ruse with the phone call, so I murdered you, not her. It wasn’t difficult to convince her after she listened to the evidence of your culpability in the Simchat Torah Massacre by feeding Quds officer Moshen Khalimov intelligence. He’s dead, by the way—so much for that ‘Immortal’ nickname.”

The Englishman smiled and resumed, “Your bodyguard, Ethan Livine, was positively enthusiastic to help us, given that his niece had been killed in it. He suggested waiting until your wife visited her sister for the weekend and allowed the cameras to be glitched so my visit wouldn’t be recorded. When she finds you, your death will be listed as a heart attack. The powers that be will make sure of it.”

Avidan felt trapped in the cage of terror that now constituted his body.

Connor said, “I think your gravest error was going off the reservation—the prime minister might have gone for it. I don’t think he liked you going behind his back to collude with Petr Fradkov. Still, I guess you were protecting everyone by running it yourself. I must say, I remain massively impressed by how you achieved all this carnage by identifying and using those two numpties. Both Beni Mizrahi and Avi Teper sang like canaries, by the way. Avi wasn’t for breaking at first until he saw the evidence we had on him for Khalil Ali’s murder.”

Avidan felt a glimmer of hope as he glided his tongue across the back of two teeth.

His tormentor continued, “It has surprised me that I haven’t the urge to really punish you—though I know you must feel turbo threaders at the moment. There is nothing I find more enjoyable and amusing than torturing an evil cunt. And I don’t mind telling you that Bruce McQuillan was a father figure to me—and I owe him a debt. But I can’t work out if you’re truly evil or just a man thinking it heroic to take heinous actions for a higher ideal. I wonder how your plan would have gone if the bomb had gone off in Saudi. Still, my therapist told me to stop making up scenarios in my head—which is weird because I don’t even have a therapist.”

The Mossad director’s tongue moved more. He dared not attempt to move his hands unless it alerted his would-be murderer.

“Apologies, I am drawing this out like a fuckin’ Bond villain. In the words of American novelist Glen Cook, ‘More evil gets done in the name of righteousness than any other way.’”

The Brit stood, reached and turned the valve positioned directly beneath the bag.

Avidan’s eyes rolled back to see the clouds through the glass ceiling spin into a dragon.

The heavy pressure in his chest spread pain throughout his jaw, neck, arms and torso.

The winged serpent dived through the ceiling. As its jaws enveloped him, his heart exploded his consciousness into a pool of death.

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Armageddon Games Review

GLOSSARY

al-arḍ – Islamic reference for Earth.

Aliyah (Making the) – Moving to Israel.

AO – Area of Operations.

Ashkenazi Jews – Broadly speaking, Jews of European heritage. More specifically, their ancestry can be traced back to France and Central and Eastern Europe, including Germany, Poland and Russia.

‘awrah – Parts considered intimate in Islam, though certain parts are open to interpretation; for example, there is some dissent on whether a man’s navel and knee is considered ‘awrah or if it is just the area between the navel and knee.

Badged – A member of UK Special Forces.

Bagging off out of watch – To cheat on one’s partner.

Beef – Royal Marine term for being weak of resolve.

Bite (to get on a) – To fool someone into thinking or saying something daft.

Black Herring – Term used in certain intelligence agencies and military organisations pertaining to false information designed not only to deceive the enemy but buy the captured time.

Black Saturday (or Simchat Torah Massacre) – The name(s) Israel uses to refer to the Hamas-led attack on Israel on the October 7th, 2023.

Blitzkrieg – A German word that translates to ‘lightning war’—a tactic of using a rapid, concentrated, surprise offensive to overwhelm the enemy to prevent a prolonged battle exchange.

Body Lock Triangle – Where a combatant will sinch their legs around their opponent from behind, creating a controlling triangle configuration.

BOLO – Be On the Look Out.

Brum – British slang for the city of Birmingham.

CQB – Close Quarter Combat.

Chatter – A signals intelligence term for intercepted communications.

Cover and manoeuvre – Infantry tactic of movement where one element moves while another friendly element remains static, ready to provide covering fire.

(the) circus – A nickname for MI6 deriving from John le Carré fiction novels.

Dacha – A seasonal or year-round second home. Typically, but not always, pitched in the more affluent areas of Russia or its post-Soviet countries.

ERV – Emergency Rendezvous.

Evolutions – A military term for a coordinated action to complete a task.

(In) Clip – ‘In a bad way’.

Fariq – Arabic for ‘team’.

FIWAF – Fighting In Woods and Forests.

Gazprom – A Russian majority state-owned multinational energy corporation. It is the largest company in Russia, as measured by revenue.

GCHQ – (Government Communications Headquarters) is an organisation that provides cyber intelligence and security to the UK Government and its armed forces.

Ghillie suit – A full-body camouflage garment.

Gom Jabbar – A handheld needle in Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ lore that causes instant death if it pierces the skin.

Gora – An Indian term for a light-skinned person. Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are familiar with the term.

Grey Man – To play the Grey Man is to project an unremarkable persona so you are forgotten.

Haram – Arabic term meaning ‘forbidden’.

Hryvnia – The hryvnia has been the national currency of Ukraine since the September 2nd, 1996.

IDF – Israel Defense Forces.

Jahannam – Very roughly, the Islamic version of Hell.

Jannah – Very roughly, the Islamic version of Heaven.             

Kippah – Jewish skull cap. Also known as a Yarmulke.

Kneidlach – Matzah balls, or matzo balls, are Ashkenazi Jewish soup morsels made from a mixture of matzah meal, beaten eggs, water and a fat, such as oil, margarine or chicken fat.

Knesset – Israel’s unicameral parliament.

Kubotan – A genericised trademark for a weaponised rod of hard plastic similar in size and shape to a marker pen, which doubles as a key chain. It was developed by a Japanese-American karateka Sōke Takayuki Kubota in the late 1960s.

Leap Frog Method – An infantry tactic of cover and manoeuvre whereby the friendly elements move past one another, as opposed to the Caterpillar Method of moving up to, but no further, to one another.

Legend – An inserted agent’s fabricated background to back up their cover story.

The Lezginka – A traditional folk dance from the Caucasus that can be performed as a solo or a couple’s dance.

Lisan al-Gaib – A term used in Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ lore to describe the Prophet or Messiah-like figure to the Fremen.

Mossad – Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, an equivalent of the CIA or the British MI6.

Mizrahi Jews – Jews of Middle Eastern or North African heritage.

NLAW – (Next generation Light Anti-tank Weapon) manufactured by Saab Bofors Dynamics, the NLAW is a fire-and-forget, lightweight, shoulder-fired and disposable line of sight missile system designed for infantry use.

Noirette – A woman with black hair.

Normalisation – A process for antagonist nations to return to ‘normal’ relations.

Ona – A Russian exclamation when something unexpected happens.

Oppo – An affectionate term for a friend within the Corps—an opposite number.

Limonka – The nickname for Russian F-1 grenade, meaning ‘little lemon’ due to its shape and colouring.

Pressel – The switch on a military communication system between the radio and the headset that allows the microphone to be switched on and off.

PRR – Personal Role Radio.

(the) Regiment – The Special Air Service.

Resolution 2231 – The UN resolution effectively banning Iran from developing or obtaining nuclear weapons.

RPGs – Rocket Propelled Grenades. Typically fired from the shoulder.

Shabak – Hebrew acronym “Sherut haBitachon haKlali” whose official title is Shin Bet, the agency responsible for security intelligence operations within Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Shura – In Arabic cultures, a shura is a consultative and advisory council. Can be from the level of a village all the way to a multi-national organisation.

SigInt – Signals Intelligence.

SIS – Secret Intelligence Service, more commonly known as MI6.

Shabach Position – An interrogation tactic used by Shin Bet that involves seating the detainee on a low, titled chair with hands behind their back and a sack over their head. It is common for loud music to be played.

Shell scrapes – A shallow dugout deep enough for the soldier to take shelter from enemy fire.

Snake Eater – Originally a term to describe US Army Special Forces—Green Berets—deriving from them having to eat like certain indigenous populations. Some use the name more broadly to describe anyone from any special forces unit.

Sprog – ‘Inexperienced’.

Stuxnet – A computer worm originally aimed at Iranian nuclear facilities.

SZRU – (Romanised: Sluzhba zovnishn’oyi rozvidky Ukrayiny) is the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine.

Tabbing – A term originating from the Parachute Regiment; to Tactically Advance to Battle is to march as rapidly as possible with either full or battle-only kit.

Thawb (or Dishdashah) – Long-sleeved ankle-length traditional robe worn predominantly in the Middle East and Africa.

Threaders – British military term for ‘fed up’ or ‘irritated’.

Tom – A moniker for private soldiers in the UK’s Parachute Regiment.

P-Company – or Pegasus Company – is the organisation that runs the Pre-Parachute Selection, accumulating in the fearsome five-day period comprising eight events designed to test the candidate’s intestinal fortitude and physical capabilities. Most in the British military use the phrase ‘P-Company’ for the actual course.

Pinged – Derived from the sound the World War II submarine detector made when a submarine was identified. In Royal Marine and Navy parlance, it means to be discovered or involuntarily ‘volunteered’.

Plastered – British slang for ‘being drunk’.

Quds Force – An elite clandestine wing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) responsible for the training, arming, funding and directing its foreign proxy forces.

Wessy – Name that people from Hull give to people from West Yorkshire.

Vasovagal response – The nervous system’s slowing of the heart rate and dilating of the blood vessels. Can be triggered by blunt force trauma to the chest and can cause fainting.

Vilayat Kavkaz – An Islamic State Affiliate based in the North Caucasus.

Yersen – Yorkshire and East Midlands slang for ‘Yourself’. Other pronouns can be similarly converted e.g. Mysen for ‘Myself’.

Yomp – Slang term used by Royal Marines to describe a long-distance march carrying a lot of equipment.

Yorkite – Term used by people not from Yorkshire to describe those who are.

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Quentin Black is a former Royal Marine corporal with a decade of service in the Corps. This includes an operational tour of Afghanistan and an advisory mission in Iraq.

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IN THE CONNOR REED SERIES

The Bootneck

How far would you go for a man who gave you a second chance in life?

Bruce McQuillan leads a black operations unit only known to a handful of men.

A sinister plot involving the Russian Bratva and one of the most powerful men within the British Security Services threatens to engulf the Isles.

Could a criminal with an impulse for sadism be the only man McQuillan can trust?

Lessons In Blood

When the ruling class commoditise the organs of the desperate, who will stop them?              

When Darren O’Reilly’s daughter is found murdered with her kidney extracted, he refuses to believe the police’s explanation. His quest for the truth reaches the ears of Bruce McQuillan, the leader of the shadowy Chameleon Project.

As a conspiracy of seismic proportions begins to reveal itself, Bruce realises he needs a man of exceptional skill and ruthlessness.

He needs Connor Reed.

Ares’ Thirst

Can one man stop World War III?

When a British aid worker disappears in Crimea, the UK Government wants her back—quickly and quietly.

And Machiavellian figures are fuelling the flames of Islamic hatred towards Russia. With ‘the dark edge of the world’ controlled by some of the most cunning, ruthless and powerful criminals on Earth, McQuillan knows he needs to send a wolf amongst the wolves before the match of global war is struck across the rough land of Ukraine.

Northern Wars

The Ryder crime family are now at war… on three fronts.

After ruthlessly dethroning his uncle, Connor Reed must now defend the family against the circling sharks of rival criminal enterprises.

Meanwhile, Bruce McQuillan, leader of a black operations unit named The Chameleon Project, has learnt that one of the world’s most brutal and influential mafias are targeting the UK pre-BREXIT.

Counterpart

Can Connor Reed survive his deadliest mission yet?

Bruce McQuillan’s plan to light the torch of war between two of the world’s most powerful and ruthless mafias has been ignited.

Can his favoured agent, Connor Reed, fan the flames without being engulfed by them?

Especially as a man every bit his equal stands on the other side.             

An Outlaw’s Reprieve

“When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.”

Reed, a leader within his own outlaw family, delights in an opportunity to punish a thug preying on the vulnerable.

However, with his target high within a rival criminal organisation, can Reed exact retribution without dragging his relatives into a bloody war?

The Puppet Master

For the first time in history, humanity has the capacity to destroy the world.

When a British scientist leads a highly proficient Japanese engineering team in unlocking the secrets to the biosphere’s survival, some will stop at nothing to see the fledging technology disappear.

In the Land of the Rising Sun, can Bruce McQuillan protect the new scientific applications from the most powerful entities on Earth?

And can his favoured agent Connor Reed defeat the deadliest adversary he has ever faced?

A King’s Gambit

Can the Ryder clan defeat a more ruthless organisation that dwarfs them in size and finance?

When the dark hands of a blood feud between Irish criminal organisations begin to choke civilians and strategies to halt the evil fail, fear grips law enforcement in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and continental Europe.

When this war ensnares the Ryder clan, Connor finds himself with the choice between trusting the skill and mental fortitude of untested family members, along with the motives of his enemy’s enemy…

Or the complete annihilation of his family.

The Devil’s Nemesis

Connor Reed owes a lethal debt.

A year on from a brutal encounter with Irish mobsters, the Ryder clan have solidified their standing as one of the UK’s most efficient outlaw organisations.

However, when Carlo Andaloro calls in a favour, Connor Reed has no choice but to travel to Canada to face its most savagely cruel crime lords.

As the black operations agent gets closer, he discovers a plan to flood Canada’s cities with death.

And the intent lays higher than anyone could imagine.