'Damn him,' muttered Matt, putting the phone down.
'Where's he gone?' Ivan handed down a cup of coffee.
'I haven't a clue,' Matt snapped angrily.
'I don't like it,' said Ivan thoughtfully. 'Your team is coming apart at the seams.'
Matt looked up at the window, and stared into the darkness.
Damien, where the hell are you?
It was now four in the morning, and Sallum wanted his work to be completed by sunrise. Assassins are like owls, he reflected to himself. We are night creatures.
He looked down at the hand, nodding his head and whispering as if in prayer. 'In the book of Sunan Abu Dawud, it is written: a thief was brought to the Apostle of Allah — may peace be upon him — and his hand was cut off. Thereafter he commanded for it, and it was hung on his neck.'
Sallum smiled to himself, drawing quiet, professional satisfaction from the way the execution had gone. An assassin, he reflected, should always act within the commandments laid down by the Prophet. A hand has many uses. Even a dead one.
From his coat, he pulled out the wallet he had taken from the locker. Two credit cards, one bank card, and three different types of reward card. All in the name of Damien Walters.
It's close to dawn. I must act quickly.
He turned the ignition on the car and pulled out of the lay-by on to the open road, turning the heat up high to fight back the cold. He hated winters, and at moments like this longed to be back in Saudi. As a boy he had grown up in a small village in the Ar Rub' al Khali Desert, the vast, desolate space that dominates the centre of the country and stretches down to the coast of Oman. Translated, 'Khali' means the empty quarter — and that was the way he remembered it: he could travel for days with his father and not encounter a single living soul or even a blade of grass. It was completely pure.
Just as soon as my work is done I will be back there.
The lodge from which he had seen the target emerge this morning was five miles away. He drove slowly, careful not to draw any attention from the few cars on the road. As he saw the rough, low-built building on the horizon, he pulled in to the side of the road.
From the glove compartment he took a pad of paper and a pen, ripping free one page, 'THIS IS THE SECOND SEVERED LIMB, THREE MORE TO GO,' he marked out in neat, block letters, 'GIVE US OUR MONEY BACK, OR I WILL KILL ALL YOUR FAMILIES AS WELL.'
Sallum wrapped the paper into a neat square, then got out of the car, taking the severed hand with him. He prised open the fingers — for a man who had only been dead for an hour, the joints were surprisingly stiff. Sallum pulled hard, forcing the hand open. He placed the note inside it, plus one of the credit cards he had taken out of the wallet, then snapped the fingers shut, making sure they were holding on tight.
Stepping towards a stone wall, he selected a small rock, just bigger than his fist. Taking some gardening twine from the boot of the Lexus, he held the hand against the rock and wrapped the twine around them both until they were secured together.
He started walking towards the lodge. The ground was soft under his feet. Rain had fallen during the night, turning parts of the field into mud. Sallum walked slowly, making sure he kept to the contours of the ground, checking that nobody could see him. Looking up, he saw the lights were still out in the lodge. Everybody was asleep.
He judged the weight of the rock in his hand. Accurately, he could probably throw it fifty feet and be certain of hitting his target. He walked closer, edging forward until he judged he was about forty feet from the house. Standing upright, he swung the rock behind his head, putting the full force of his shoulder muscles into the shot. The rock spun away from his hand, and a second later he could hear glass splintering. The target had been hit.
Sallum turned and started running, his feet bouncing over the ground. By the time they heard the crash and looked out of the window, he guessed he should have made it to the car. The most they would see was a Lexus pulling away and disappearing down the road.
Now they will know what it is like to incur the wrath of the Prophet.
Matt had seen Reid in some tense situations. There was a time in Bosnia when they had been pinned down in a farmhouse, with a sniper hiding in the trees right next to the building: they'd had to survive without food for three days until the man showed himself and they could kill him. But Matt had never seen Reid as shaken as he saw him now: his voice was fractured, and there was fear in his eyes.
'Do you want to see it?' he said.
Matt nodded. No man wants to see the dead flesh of a close friend, but he knew he had no choice. 'I'd better.'
The assassin is getting to us. That's part of his plan.
Matt and Ivan had driven straight up to Derbyshire after getting the call from Reid early that morning. A hand tied to a rock had been slung through the window, he said. It had Damien's credit card attached to it, and a note telling them to give the money back. You didn't have to spend long figuring out where it might have come from. Or what had happened to Damien.
Does that mean it's not Ivan? Matt wondered to himself. I was with Ivan when Damien was killed. Maybe Reid killed both Cooksley and Damien. .
'It's outside,' said Reid. 'I didn't want Jane or the kids to see it.'
The lodge was a simple wooden structure. It had two bedrooms, a wood-burning stove that doubled up as a cooker, and a shower room. The two children, Jack and Emily, had already filled the main room with toys and drawings: Jack was busy doing a picture of his little sister while Jane busied herself packing. She nodded at Matt, smiling but remaining silent. She knows something is up, Matt thought. She can see it in our eyes.
A woman always knows when her husband is not telling the truth.
'Over here,' said Reid, stepping out of the lodge and crossing into the field.
It was a desolate spot, high on the side of a hill, with a vicious wind whipping in from the east. A flock of sheep was grazing in the next field, and the road was just visible at the bottom of the valley, but otherwise the lodge was completely isolated. Whoever had put the hand through the window would not have been seen, reflected Matt. They could be certain of that.
He's a professional. He's not about to help us out by making a stupid mistake.
Reid stepped over a granite wall, and pointed to a pair of large stones. The hand was resting on top. The skin had started to change colour, turning to a grey-blue. Blood had stopped dripping from where it had been severed from the arm, and the fingers had been forced open when Reid took out the note.
He was my best friend, Matt thought. And it's my fault this has happened to him.
'It looks a few hours old,' said Ivan, kneeling down and examining the hand. 'I reckon he killed him first, then cut the hand off.'
Matt's mind was still full of memories of Damien: images of them running the same streets together, bunking off school, kicking footballs across the park.
Ivan stood up, unfolding the note Reid had passed to him. He looked at Matt and Reid, his eyes narrowing. 'There were five of us, and now there are three.'
Matt turned away, looking down to the valley stretching out below. 'How the hell did this man know where Damien was?' he said.
All three of them fell silent.
I can ask the question, reflected Matt. But I can't supply the answers.
'I don't like to admit it, boys, but I'm scared,' said Reid, breaking the silence. 'This guy was just a few hundred feet from my children back there. He could have come in and taken us all out the way he took out Cooksley.' He paused. 'I signed up for this mission because I needed work, and I needed a fresh start in life. Maybe we should give them the money back like they ask. I tell you, I don't care about it any more. I just want out.'