Priestley walked into the room, a rather hangdog expression on his face, while Will left. He shut the door and stood guard outside.
It had been a long forty-eight hours. Just being with Priestley, the man murkily implicated in what had happened to his family, was strain enough, let alone the constant watching. The constant waiting. Every second he expected something to happen. Every second he expected to see Faisal Ahmed coming at him.
It would happen. He knew it would. And when it did, Will just had to be ready. He had to make sure that his plan was sound.
From the bathroom, suddenly, there was a noise.
Breaking glass.
Will felt his skin tingle, then a calm descended upon him. It was always like this when you went into battle. The wait was agonising, but when the moment arrived everything kicked in. The training, the preparation — it happened without thinking. He pressed himself against the wall to one side of the door and raised the handgun.
He listened carefully: the shuffling of feet.
Any minute now, he thought to himself. Give yourself a few moments. Burst in now and he'll be expecting you; hold back for a moment and you'll have the element of surprise.
His mind was acutely clear. Crystalline.
He took a deep breath. With one foot he kicked the door open and burst into the bathroom, his gun pointing out in front of him, his finger poised on the trigger, ready to shoot.
Priestley was alone. He was standing at the sink, his trousers still unbuckled and his shirt hanging out. He looked at the handgun with horror.
Will's eyes darted around the room. Only at the last moment did he see the glass smashed on the floor.
'I–I dropped it,' Priestley stuttered, his face white. 'I–I'm sorry. I just got kind of panicky, and my hand started trembling—' He looked down at himself, at his state of semi-undress, and an expression of embarrassment crossed his face. 'Shit,' he hissed. 'Why can't they just call me back to Langley, those bastards? Why can't they just fucking airlift me out of here?'
Because they're a step ahead of you, Priestley,Will thought to himself. They're a step ahead of you and they're hoping we might be the answer to all their problems the minute we each have Ahmed's bullets in our skulls. You think Ahmed's your enemy? Well let me tell you — you've got more enemies than you'll ever know.
Will lowered his gun. He was breathing heavily, he realised, and he was staring at Priestley in disgust. The man looked pitiful, pathetic. How powerful he must have felt, giving the orders that put lives at risk. And now look at him. A contemptible sight. Nothing but a weak man, terrified for his life.
Unable to stand up for himself.
Unable to stand up to the consequences of his actions.
'Get dressed,' Will spat, finding him too repugnant even to look at. 'Get dressed and I'll call out for food. I'm fucking starving.'
Midnight.
The lights in Faisal Ahmed's flat were low and he didn't speak a word as he made his preparations. He put on nondescript clothes, then went about the time-consuming business of shaving off his beard. When it was done, he turned almost defiantly to his sister. It made him look younger, Latifa thought. She had not seen him cleanshaven for many years and the sight took her back to the time when she had been like a mother to him.
She still felt like a mother to him, she realised, and at that moment she felt a mother's anxieties. Latifa had begged him countless times not to go and each time he had steadfastly ignored her pleas. On the few occasions when he did speak of it, he always said the same thing. 'I'm just doing what I have to do, Latifa. You don't have to understand it — you just have to accept it.'
But she could not accept it. 'Please, Faisal. Please do not leave me. What if you come to harm? What will happen to me then?'
'I will not come to harm,' Faisal said, as he dismantled one of his many guns and placed the constituent parts into his bag.
'You don't know that, Faisal. You have given them warning that this is what you are going to do. He will be surrounded by security.'
A whisper of a smile played across Faisal's lips. 'You were surrounded by security as well,' he noted, and to Latifa's ear his voice had the sound of a little boy gloating.
'Your pride will be your undoing, Faisal.'
For a moment he stopped what he was doing. He put down his bag, turned and walked towards his sister. She looked away from him, but he gently stretched out his hand and lifted her chin so that their eyes met again.
'Latifa,' he said, softly. 'Listen to me. The Russians killed our parents in front of us. Do you remember that day, Latifa? Do you remember it as vividly as I do?'
'How could I forget, Faisal?'
'Do you remember the way the blood seeped from their bodies and was absorbed by the earth?'
She nodded, tears welling up in her eyes.
'Every time I killed a Russian soldier, I did it for them. I did it for their memory, so they would look down on me and be proud. For all those years you gave me looks of such disapproval; and yet you never tried to stop me, because somewhere deep down you understood what I was doing.'
Latifa jutted out her chin. She refused to agree with him, yet she felt unable to disagree.
'The man I am going after now,' Faisal continued, 'he tried to do to me what the Russians did to our parents. He would not have pulled the trigger, of course. But he was responsible. And if he had been successful, he would have gone on to kill innocent people. People like our parents, Latifa. So look me in the eye now and tell me I am doing the wrong thing.'
He stared hard at her and she faltered under that gaze. There was nothing she could say to him, she saw that now. Nothing that would turn him back from the path he had chosen. 'I just don't want to lose my little brother,' she said, weakly.
Faisal lowered his hand. 'You lost your little brother many years ago, Latifa. I am not the same person. I am what the Americans made me and if that comes back to haunt them, I am a ghost of their own making.'
She looked at him again. His features were dark. Unrelenting.
'But there is one thing I swear to you, Latifa. Whatever happens, either now or in the future, I will see to it that you are safe. You have suffered enough on my account and as God is my witness I will see to it that such things do not happen again.'
She felt the tears coming to her eyes again as her reckless, impetuous brother made these promises she knew he could not keep.
'And you know that I am a man of my word, Latifa. You know that.'
Latifa shook her head. She felt somehow crushed by the power of her despair.
'Yes, Faisal,' she replied. 'You are a man of your word. I know it.'
NINETEEN
When dawn came, it brought with it streaks of red across the sky. Will Jackson stood at the window of the room adjoining the one where Priestley slept, grateful in some ways that the night had passed, but wondering what the day would bring. The red sky seemed to shout a warning at him.
Will had gone beyond tiredness now. Perhaps he would be able to grab some sleep here and there when Priestley was in meetings, but if not it didn't matter. He was surviving on raw adrenaline at the moment and he felt as if he could stay awake for days. For as long as it took to get the job done.
Priestley was an early riser and it wasn't long after dawn that Will heard him moving about in his bedroom. He knocked on the door, then opened it to see the American walking around wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. He had more of a gut than Will might have expected from seeing him fully clothed and he looked over in annoyance. 'A bit of privacy would be nice.'