She wasn’t moving.
Joe quickly detached the sight from the dead man’s sniper rifle and used it to zoom in on her. The tide was lapping around her head. Two seagulls had settled on her body. Although it was difficult at this distance to be sure, Joe thought he could make out a dark patch, about the size of his hand, on her hooded top. And he knew what that meant.
Icy dread crashed over him. He looked from his oldest friend to his son. Had he sacrificed one for the other?
He shoved the sight in his shoulder bag, quickly dismantled the sniper rifle, then picked Conor up from the floor as easily as if he was a rag doll. With his son lifted over his shoulder, he started to run through the bracken. There was a steep, rocky descent to the beach 150 metres to the north. He covered the ground in less than twenty seconds, even with Conor’s extra weight, spurred on by adrenalin and a deep, horrible sense of foreboding.
He descended sideways, but otherwise with no thought for his own personal safety as he scrambled and slipped down to the beach, barely aware of the rain that had just started to fall. As he ran towards Eva, the sand felt like glue, dragging him back, holding him down…
And then he was just two metres from her, laying Conor gently on his back and kneeling down in the cold, salty water as he pressed his hand to the dark patch which had doubled in size… ripping the hood back from Eva’s face to see it pale and waxy, her nose and half of her mouth submerged in the water. He scooped her up and moved her away from the water’s edge, before pressing his fingers to her neck. Her skin was icy, but there was a pulse. She was still alive. Just.
Joe pulled the top over her head to reveal her torso clad in body armour, her shoulders and elbows wrapped in Kevlar pads. The blood was seeping from her left side, where the front armoured plate met its rear twin. He quickly undid the straps that held the two together. She was wearing a T-shirt underneath it, and this too was saturated with blood. Joe pulled it up to see the damage. An open wound. Massive blood loss. The rain was heavy now, but not heavy enough to wash away the blood. He quickly unstrapped the Kevlar helmet from Eva’s head, ran to the sea and filled it with water. Back at her side, he poured the salty water over the wound. As the blood washed away, he saw a gash at the side of her abdomen about two inches long and found himself exhaling deeply with relief. It was a flesh wound, not an entry wound. The round must have ricocheted somehow and punctured the gap between the plates. Had the angle been only slightly different, she would have been dead.
But even this wound was dangerous. The blood was flowing again. Joe had to stem it. He grabbed the top – it was covered with salt and sand now, but he couldn’t do anything about that. He ripped it along one of its seams and then wrapped it round Eva’s abdomen, tying the sleeves in a tight knot so that the material pressed firmly against the wound. It was hardly ideal, but it was the best he could do.
Eva coughed. Seawater spilled from her mouth. Her eyes flickered open. At first he thought she couldn’t see anything – her pupils expanded and contracted as she tried to focus. But then her vision seemed to clear. ‘Joe?’ she whispered.
‘We’ve got to get you back to the house.’ Joe’s voice was breathless. ‘You’ve lost a lot of blood…’
‘Conor… ’
‘He’s… OK. He’s here. Eva, do you think you can walk?’ He knew he couldn’t safely carry them both, not in the state they were in.
Eva closed her eyes. With a great effort she nodded, then tried to push herself up onto her elbows, before sinking back into the sand.
Joe put his hands under her arms and helped her to a sitting position. Her face was creased with pain, but she gave no word of complaint. Moments later she had one arm around Joe’s shoulder as he bent to pick up Conor, who was still lying, eyes open, on the sand, shivering but otherwise motionless.
It was still not fully light. The beach was deserted. His son over his shoulder, his oldest friend leaning heavily on his other side, Joe staggered slowly back towards the cliff. They needed shelter. They needed care. The nearest place was a kilometre from the clifftop. It was a deserted house where the body of an old woman lay rotting at the bottom of the stairs. A place where Joe was hopeful of finding something that might tell him more about the man he had just sent to his death.
It was not in Mahmood Ashkani’s nature to smile often, but he did sometimes. It was a sign of how much Mansfield’s continued refusal to die had unnerved him that confirmation of his death had lifted a weight from his shoulders.
He glanced at the passenger seat, at his laptop and satellite phone, and at the small data stick that looked so ordinary but whose contents would, within a few hours, have been viewed by half the people on the planet. Then he glanced at the dashboard clock. Seven thirteen. No need to increase his speed. He had plenty of time.
He arrived at his destination half an hour later. It was the bleak entrance to a deserted slate mine that had long since been abandoned. He parked his car behind a ten-metre-high pile of slag, quite confident that nobody would disturb him here. He had not chosen this place for that reason, however, but simply because it was the right place to be. He plugged his satellite phone into the side of his laptop before doing the same with the data stick.
Then he turned his eyes to the sky.
Not long, he thought to himself.
Not long now.
TWENTY
The White House, 0200 hours EST.
Herb Sagan did not like Mason Delaney. He didn’t like the way he surrounded himself with pretty boys, or the way he so obviously felt superior to everyone. But he had to hand it to him. First bin Laden, now this. The President’s Chief of Staff, Jed Wallace, who was sitting with Sagan and Delaney, clearly felt the same.
Wallace’s face was white. ‘How did you get this information, Mason?’
The glance that Sagan and Delaney shared was only momentary, but filled with meaning.
‘Your predecessor was very fond of that question, Jed,’ Delaney sighed.
‘Mason, the President’s going to—’
‘The President, Jed, does not want to know where this information came from, believe me. It’s a lot easier for him to deny all knowledge when he has no knowledge, wouldn’t you say? And in approximately…’ he looked at his watch ‘… eight hours’ time, he’ll be able to tell the nation that he has just foiled a plot to blow up five domestic and international flights in mid-air, and that on top of his recent PR success in Pakistan. I don’t think right-minded people will be asking too many questions about where the information came from. Am I wrong?’
Wallace looked uncertain. ‘You know what his manifesto was, Mason. An end to torture… extraordinary rendition…’
Delaney started to stand up. There was a new edge to his voice. ‘Well, Jed, if the President would rather have a 9/11 of his very own…’
‘For God’s sake sit down, Mason,’ Wallace snapped. Delaney gave a look of mild surprise at this display of authority, before settling back once more. Wallace turned to Sagan. ‘Herb, run it past me one more time. If I’m going to wake him, I want to have my ducks in a row.’
Sagan nodded. He had notes in the bag by his feet, but having worked on this since breakfast time he didn’t need them. ‘We have evidence of a coordinated mid-air strike over American soil. Five flights in total. Projected death toll, just over 1000 people. Thanks to Mason’s source, however, we have the precise flight numbers. We know which aircraft the terrorists are targeting. Tampa to JFK, Boston to LAX, Orlando to Montreal, Philadelphia to Seattle, Cincinnati to Newark. They all depart between 0500 and 0505 hours, so they’ll be in the air simultaneously.’