Terminal Guidance

“I dispatched three of my people to follow and deal with these men. If they do not succeed it will be down to you to engage your mercenaries to handle them. I will let you know what unfolds. In the meantime your task is to make certain Mr. Henning is unable to conduct his inquiries further. Do you understand?”

“Understood,” Winch said. “It will be handled immediately. Personally.”

“Do not contact me until the matter is concluded.”

“The usual arrangement?”

“Of course, Mr. Winch. Do not worry about it. You will definitely get what is coming to you.”

Winch failed to recognize the irony in Prem’s words.

Prem ended the call and replaced the handset.

“He can do this?” Qazi asked.

“I believe so. He has never failed me yet and I see no reason why it should be any different this time. It must not be different. Our purpose here in the U.K. is much more than assisting in Rahman’s operation, important as it is. Our whole network could be jeopardized. I will not allow that to happen.” Prem picked up the phone again. “I must call Colonel Rahman and update him on the situation. If matters escalate he will not be pleased if he has not been advised.”

“Tell him I will be leaving on the evening flight back to Pakistan,” Qazi said. “There is nothing else here for me to do.”

THE CITROËN ACCELERATED as the road narrowed, bounded on either side by older houses in various stages of redevelopment. The French-built car powered up to within a foot of the Phoenix Force vehicle.

“Naughty, naughty,” McCarter muttered. “I hate tailgaters. But I have a way of dealing with them.”

The Briton stomped on the brake. As the Phoenix Force BMW slowed, the driver of the Citroën was forced to do the same. The car lurched, tires squealing as it dropped back, smoke whipping from the tires. McCarter pushed his foot down again and took the BMW up to the maximum he could risk on a public road.

“Never a cop around when you need one,” he grumbled. “Any other time the place would be crawling with patrol cars and the road lined with speed cameras.”

“I think these guys know that, too,” Hawkins said. “And I don’t reckon they’re about to quit and go home to Momma.”

“You think I went too far with Prem?” McCarter asked.

James glanced at the Briton and didn’t miss the slight smirk on his lips. “You wanted him to react, didn’t you?”

“Was that what I did?”

“Dammit, David, you know how these guys hate anyone pissing them off. Right now you’ve probably been issued with a fatwa all your own.”

“Bloody hell, me on a level with Salman Rushdie. Next thing, the queen will be offering me an OBE.”

Tires screeched as the Citroën swept into the opposite lane and started to draw level with the SUV.

“That guy behind the wheel is one reckless dude,” James said.

“You think?” Hawkins commented. “Oh, great…”

“What?”

“Gun,” Hawkins yelled.

The BMW shuddered as a stream of slugs struck the right-hand rear side panel.

McCarter responded with a jerk to the wheel that sent the BMW into the path of the chase car. There was a hard thump as the two collided. The Citroën rocked under the impact. The shooter, leaning out of the rear window, was knocked back inside the car, giving Hawkins the chance he needed. He had already powered down his window, giving him a clear shot as he leveled his Beretta and triggered a triple volley. The shooter, righting himself, caught the 9 mm slugs in his throat and jaw. Hawkins caught a brief glimpse of the guy jerking back from the window, blood spurting from his torn flesh.

Swinging the wheel again, McCarter slammed the Citroën a second time. It swung away, hitting the far curb. The impact bounced the Citroën up onto the sidewalk, the wheels turning despite the driver’s attempt to maintain a straight course. The car plowed into piles of building materials in of one of the houses. Hawkins, watching through the rear window, saw the vehicle slide, then flip over onto its side, crashing headlong through the stacks of lumber and sheeting.

McCarter raised his eyes to the rearview mirror.

“Oops,” he said. He met Calvin James’s eyes. “Cal, call Henning and let him know what just happened. Tell him we need to get this car off the streets. He’ll know somewhere we can meet up without any kind of audience.”

“ANY DAMAGE?” Henning asked. He had met Phoenix Force at a basement garage of a closed office block off the Bayswater Road. The garage was gloomy, with water dripping from the low concrete ceiling.

“Only to the car,” James said. “And one of the opposition ran into a couple of bullets.”

“Good.” Henning peered at the buckled front end and the ragged bullet holes at the rear. “Business as usual, Jack. Never fails. Minute you set foot in the old town, all hell breaks loose.”

“He has that effect wherever he goes,” James said.

“I believe you.” The cop leaned against the hood of the BMW. “I take it all this was a result of you going to visit Samman Prem? How did you find him?”

“Tetchy,” McCarter said. “Thinks a lot of himself. Didn’t take it too well, me hinting we have the goods on him.”

“He wouldn’t. Not a winning personality, our Mr. Prem. I’d go as far as saying he is an arrogant little jerk.”

“Poking him with a stick didn’t help his disposition,” James added, glancing sideways at McCarter.

The Briton feigned innocence. “I was just keeping the conversation going.”

“How did he react to that?”

“Stamped his little feet when he walked away,” McCarter said.

“Then sent a tail car after us,” Hawkins interjected. “They tried to push us off the road, then started shooting.”

“Christ, Jack, when you blokes start something you really start something.”

“One way of putting it,” McCarter said. “We’re punching in the dark here, Gregory. We have the threat of a hit, but we don’t know when or where, so no time for being subtle or checking the rule books. If that means kicking arses to make things happen, then we kick.”

“I’ll handle the car for you. Get it moved where no questions are the order of the day,” Henning said. “Give you a ride back to your hotel?”

“Thanks, mate. Your tip about Prem looks like it paid off. That bugger is involved in something. I’ll bet my pension on that. We can have our people check out his company. Maybe they’ll come up with something useful. If they don’t I’ll most likely go back and beat it out of him before I set fire to his warehouses.”

“Maybe the day hasn’t been a total waste, then,” Henning said.

“McCarter might not be joking,” Hawkins said.

“Oh, I know that,” the cop acknowledged. “Listen, I think I have a lead on who might have been selling us out. I had my suspicions and was going to follow them through, but I was given an assignment and had to drop what I was doing. When you called and brought me up to date, certain things you said tied in with my own theory. So expect a call if I hit pay dirt.”

McCarter nodded. “You watch your back, Gregory. Rats may be squirmy little buggers, but they have sharp teeth when they’re backed into a corner.”

Henning led them to his parked SUV and they all climbed in. He swung the vehicle around and drove out of the garage. As he pushed into the traffic, he activated his car phone and punched in a speed dial number. When his call was answered Henning gave explicit instructions to whoever was on the line, making it clear what he needed done. He finished the call and sat back, smiling.

“Your wheels will disappear in the next couple of hours. Never to be seen again. I’ll insert a stolen-vehicle report for you. Call the rental firm and tell them the car was nicked earlier this afternoon. There’s a pad on the dash there. Write down this number and quote it to the rental company. They’ll use it when they contact the local cops. It’s a crime case number. Rental company can use it when they make a claim on their insurance.”

McCarter wrote down the information and tucked the paper in his jacket. “Always knew the Met was a bloody good outfit.”

“’Met?’” Hawkins repeated.

“Metropolitan Police,” Henning said. “London’s city police force. Go all the way back to 1829. They always say those were the good old days. With what we have to deal with now I’m starting to think that could be true.”

“Gregory, we live in parlous times,” McCarter said. “All we can do is keep up the good work.”

“Hey, you two, “James said, “enough of the down-home philosophy. It’s like listening to a couple of old-timers rocking on the porch.”

Back at the hotel McCarter contacted Stony Man and spoke with Barbara Price. He gave her an update, including the fate of their rental.

“Well, at least letting your pal handle the disappearance should avoid awkward questions about bullet holes,” Price said. “I’ll make a call and sort out another car for you.”

“Thanks. We need some in-depth information about Samman Prem and his company. Shipping. Any connections. Hell, you know the drill.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Greg Henning’s earlier investigation went back a couple weeks. Even then he’d been aware he was breaking every rule in the book, but his conviction that he had the right man dictated he do something about it. Operating in the counterterrorist unit had exposed him to the inner workings of the terrorist mind, and the things he had seen and heard only proved what he suspected. Terrorism, in all its twisted forms, was the scourge of the twenty-first century. It fed on hypocrisy, hid its evil under religious dogma, using the logic of persuasion and in most cases blatant brainwashing of vulnerable minds. The hate fostered by the al Qaeda generation of terrormongers was done via the teachers and advisors, men who stayed away from the results of their haranguing, never exposing themselves to risk. They remained in safety, dispatching their acolytes to kill and maim, and in many instances to be killed them selves in suicide attacks, willing to destroy with the promises of eternal life in paradise.

Nine/eleven, the London bombings and countless other atrocities were claimed as victories for the jihad. Each strike was celebrated by cheering, howling mobs, while the innocent victims were grieved by the survivors. There was little sense to it all, but in the aftermath, the Western governments realized this was going to be a long battle. The security agencies slowly began to understand the complexities of this new kind of war, and after false starts gathered themselves unto some semblance of coordination.

Perfection was still a distance away, but antiterrorist organizations slowly emerged. Greg Henning volunteered for the U.K.’s counterterrorist squad the day he heard it was being formed. He saw it as a total necessity, and pushed himself to the limit once he had been fully accredited. It was a job that demanded every agent give total attention, then more. Henning had been married in his younger years, but the partnership hadn’t lasted, ending in divorce after six years. His work in the new unit meant he needed to be there on a 24/7 basis. It suited him.

His understanding of the job and its requirements was cause for concern when it became suspected there could be a leak within the unit. He found the concept of a traitor repulsive. The squad was manned by professional men and women who put themselves on the line and worked endless shifts to keep ahead of the terrorists. To have one of their own passing information, weakening the group’s ability to stay focused, was unthinkable and totally unacceptable.

Being in the top echelon within the department, Henning was given a briefing by his immediate superiors. They had suspicions but no proof. Initial investigation had been difficult. If there was a traitor inside the unit, any checking had to be undertaken with great care, for fear of alerting the mole. It was one of those near impossible situations. It could have easily broken up the team, each member suspicious of his or her partners. Any prolonged procedure would damage trust and imperil the smooth workings of the department.

Henning had already fixed his attention on a single member of the unit, having been alerted by the man’s behavior. He closed in on the individual in his own surreptitious way, quietly and with an almost indifferent attitude.

The man’s name was Lewis Winch. A smart and confident agent, he held a high ranking in the unit. His brief was to act not only as a U.K. operative, but also to liaise with European and American agencies. Winch had made this his prime role and had built a reputation as a brilliant negotiator when it came to handling awkward international conflicts. There were still territorial stumbling blocks to deal with when it came to diplomacy directives, and Winch seemed to have the techniques for smoothing things over. Within the department he was almost a law unto himself. He came and went, making frequent visits to the Continent and even the U.S.A. He was often out of the department on consultations, as he put it.

Henning wasn’t sure how or when he began to have an unsettling feeling where Winch was concerned. His suspicions might have been aroused by the man’s increasing attitude of what Henning could only call twitchy. Winch seemed to be looking over his shoulder metaphorically, reacting awkwardly whenever someone approached him, almost with paranoia. Henning told himself he was looking too hard, seeing things that meant very little, but he found he was studying Winch whenever the man was around.

A definite sign appeared the day the reports started coming in about the killing and bombing in Peshawar. Henning saw Winch’s reaction as the large wall-mounted plasma TV began to show the images. The whole of the main office was watching, so Winch’s response was noticed only by Henning. He saw Winch turn away and hurry to his own office, where he took out a cell phone. Seated at in his own desk, Henning witnessed Winch’s actions through the open blinds. He couldn’t hear what the man was saying, but from his expression it was plain he was agitated. The call went on for a couple of minutes before he cut the conversation and dropped the cell phone back into the desk drawer, then snatched his coat off its hook and exited.

Henning went to his office window, which overlooked the street. As he had somehow expected, Winch stepped into view from the building and hailed a taxi. Henning’s office was only one floor up so he was able to read the number on the cab’s license plate. He turned and jotted it on his desk pad.

Nothing unusual in someone taking a taxi.

Except that this was Lewis Winch.

And Winch hated any kind of public transport. He never, ever used taxis. Always drove his own car, which would be parked, even now, in the basement garage under the building. The whole scenario jarred. Henning sat down, staring at the number he had written on his desk pad.

Winch had reacted sharply at the TV report. It wasn’t anything they hadn’t seen before. But this time Winch had been clearly taken by surprise.

Why?

And who had he called so urgently?

Henning sat back, understanding he had to follow this through. It might not lead him anywhere. Winch’s behavior could have been an innocent reaction to the events unfolding on the screen. But it felt like something entirely different to Greg Henning.

He wanted to be proved wrong.

Genuinely proved wrong.

The recent problems the department had been experiencing, the operations having to be called off due to compromising situations and the fact that prior warning had been leaked to parties under observation—all these needed to be answered.

And this unusual behavior warranted investigation, no matter what the outcome.

That afternoon, Winch didn’t return for a couple hours. On arrival, he went directly to his office and closed the door, then sat at his desk for a while before he turned on his laptop and began to work.

Henning watched him covertly from his own office. His hopes of not being seen were marred when he saw Winch watching him. This happened a couple times.

Winch finished early, pulling on his coat and walking out of his office. He flicked off the light and closed the door.

It seemed he was about to head over to Henning’s office, but he stared for a moment, then turned and left the department.

Back at his office window, Henning waited, finally seeing his colleague’s car nose out from the basement garage and merge with the busy London traffic. He stayed at the window until the vehicle was out of sight.

Winch’s behavior left Henning with a feeling of disquiet, an unsettling sensation that wouldn’t leave him.

He was ready to take those suspicions a step forward. That was when his telephone rang and Henning was assigned a call to duty. He had to put the Winch matter on the back burner until he had cleared his assignment, because he refused to expose his feelings until he could prove his case.

The day he returned to the department, and before he could even check his computer, the phone rang and the man he knew as Jack Coyle was asking him to meet for a drink and a chat.

ON HIS RETURN TO his office following his meeting with Jack Coyle, Henning went over their conversation. The subjects they had covered had rekindled his earlier suspicions about Lewis Winch—the man’s reaction to the bombing scenes in Pakistan, his sudden departure from the office and his extremely odd behavior with the taxi.

If Henning was wrong about him, no harm would have been done. If his suspicions proved sound, that was another matter. He admitted he was acting purely on instinct, but he trusted his senses. They had proved reliable on other occasions.

Henning located the license number of the taxi he had written down. The antiterrorism squad had an extensive and top-of-the-line cyber unit. Their ability to seek and find was unrivaled in London. Henning logged on using his password. He tapped in the vehicle number and ran a check on its details. The search provided him with the cab company, and from that Henning was able to access the logs of each vehicle. He inputted the taxi’s license number and the date he was interested in. In less than a minute he had a list of all the fares the cab had picked up that day. Henning scrolled down it until he located the one that had originated outside their building. The time tallied with when he had seen Winch climb into the taxi.

Henning studied the address where his colleagues had completed his journey.

The London office of Samman Prem.

Henning sat and stared at the monitor, trying to come up with any legitimate reason for Lewis Winch to visit the office of a man like Prem. He failed. Then he pondered whether, just because Winch had been dropped off outside Prem’s building, it was fair to assume the man had gone inside. Henning decided it was too much of a stretch to believe Winch had been dropped off at Prem’s place of business and not gone inside.

Samman Prem was one of the men on the watch list. A man who had been followed from time to time and considered a person of interest. If the unit had unlimited funds, it might have placed Prem under full-time observation, but true to the way things happened, the counterterrorist squad had to spread its allocations of men and money thinly over a large area. So Prem was no longer under watch.

Henning tried another route, via the extensive network of TV cameras that were installed all over London. He used the system to locate the address he wanted, and discovered there were two cameras on the East End street where Samman Prem’s office building stood. Henning tapped in date and time and waited, hoping that any recorded views had not been wiped from the digital records.

The first camera had been cleared, but Henning’s second attempt provided what he wanted. The long shot showed the taxi pulling up outside the building. Even at that distance, he recognized Winch as the man stepped out of the taxi, paid the driver, turned and went in through the main door. Henning ran the action back until he had a full shot of him, then used the zoom facility to bring the image closer. This time there was no doubt in Henning’s mind; the man on his monitor screen was Lewis Winch. Before he logged out, Henning saved the image and stored it on his own computer.

He leaned back in his chair and stared at the face of the man he had just watched enter the office building of a suspect individual.

Looking over the top of his monitor, Henning was able to see Winch in his own office.

So what now?

Did he go across and confront the man?

Or take his findings to his superiors?

Henning knew he had to proceed carefully. Confronting Winch might backfire on him. The man would undoubtedly deny any wrongdoing, might even come up with a logical explanation.

Henning dismissed that thought immediately. There was no logical explanation that would clear up the fact that Winch had been seen entering Prem’s building.

Something was nagging away at the back of Henning’s mind, demanding an answer. He allowed it to take form.

If Winch was a mole, why would he risk a daylight visit to the office of a suspected terrorist?

There was no sense in risking exposure.

Henning recalled the way Winch had reacted to the TV coverage of the Pakistani bombing report. Perhaps seeing the results of information he may have passed along had unnerved him. Maybe this was the first time he had been witness to what his traitorous dealings had done. A touch of conscience, a realization that what he was involved in was far from a harmless game? Perhaps time had caught up and Winch realized he had become part of what was not a game but a brutal reality. Seeing death and human suffering, Winch may have felt the need to confront his paymasters. It was no big leap to move to the inevitable conclusion that his colleague was selling information for cash. Henning didn’t view him as idealistic. There was no visible altruistic reason why Winch would be passing along sensitive information without receiving some kind of reward.

Henning brought himself back to the present. He played with the details he had, using his desk pad to list them, then stared at the penciled notations.

Lewis Winch—supposedly on Henning’s side of the fence, though emerging facts were suggesting otherwise.

Samman Prem—a suspect who had received a personal visit from Winch a couple weeks back.

Jack Coyle’s face-to-face with Prem, which had been followed by a violent attack on Coyle and his team.

Henning doodled with his pencil, still unsure of the full intent of his gathered information. When he glanced at his watch he saw it was late. He threw the pencil down and stood up, clicking off his computer. He tore the sheet of paper from his pad and slid it into the office shredder, grabbed his coat and headed out. The department was empty except for the evening team.

Winch had left much earlier.

In the elevator Henning leaned against the side of the car, glad to leave the office behind. The image of a tender steak and a foamy pint of beer crossed his mind. He was still thinking about food as he climbed into his car and drove out of the basement garage. Light rain had wet the road, and multicolored reflections of street and store lights spread across the tarmac. There was heavy rush-hour traffic and it took Henning forty-five minutes to negotiate the distance to his home.

Reaching his destination, he turned in at the archway that fronted the residential mews where he lived. He came to a stop a few yards from his front door, cut the engine, climbed out and locked his car.

And that was when he heard someone call his name.

CHAPTER FIVE

Greg Henning paused as he searched in his pocket for his house key. Stalling by pretending he couldn’t find it, he slid his right hand inside his coat, located the butt of his handgun and released the breakaway strap. His already alerted senses ratcheted up a notch when he heard his name being spoken again.

He knew now he hadn’t been mistaken.