Nick Oldham - Critical Threat

‘That much I know.’

‘She’s due to reach Lancashire this afternoon after visiting Liverpool,’ Donaldson said. He settled his big frame into the seat next to Henry, crossed his long, muscular legs. ‘As you can imagine, the security arrangements are way up there.’ His index finger pointed skywards.

‘I QA-d the Operational Order,’ Henry said.

‘That only tells half the story … no doubt you are aware that your English cops and security services have been in constant contact with their American counterparts?’ His voice rose at the end of the sentence with that curious American inflection that seemed to make every statement a question. ‘Even if the world wasn’t in the state it is, the security arrangements for the visit would still be massive and as it is, they’re well beyond that.’

‘But there’s more?’ Henry prompted.

‘Much more,’ Donaldson said gravely. ‘Think you can stand up?’

They were in a darkened room, two rows of chairs, five in each row, facing the front where there was a brightly lit, but blank, projector screen. Henry sat in the middle of the front row, the only member of the audience. Donaldson stood at the front of the room to one side of the screen, bending to look at the keys of a laptop computer, hooked up to a data projector, which was throwing bright light on to the screen.

Donaldson spoke as he faffed around with the computer, occasionally muttering something about ‘hi-tech shit’ under his breath. ‘This will have to be quick, Henry, and I make no apologies for that … shit! … computers!’ he tapped a few keys, then said, ‘Ahh, here we are … found it.’ He picked up a remote mouse and sat next to Henry. ‘Since your Foreign Secretary visited Condoleezza Rice in her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama last year, we’ve known she was invited back by him to visit this backwater … so far, so OK. Our security service, your security service, start to get heads together with the politicos to arrange the visit. High profile, lots of cops, lots of spooks. However, a seed of information came to light, then blossomed into a flower, if you will.’ He cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the metaphor. ‘An arrest was made in Spain … do you recall the Madrid train bombing?’

‘Who could forget that?’ The carnage wrought on a morning commuter train into that city, bombs exploded by Islamic extremists, killing and maiming many.

‘To this day suspects are being pulled in. Two months ago Spanish police arrested a guy suspected of involvement and interrogated him-’

‘Interrogated?’

‘OK, tortured him,’ Donaldson said flippantly. ‘Turns out he was very peripheral to the actual bombings.’

‘Because torture always elicits the truth?’

Donaldson gave him a cold look. ‘Don’t get all moral high ground with me, pal,’ he warned Henry, who shuddered. It was a definite shot across the bows. ‘We don’t have time for any of that.’

‘OK.’ Henry shrugged, chastened, but experiencing something very nasty crawling through his lower intestine.

‘This guy dropped some names, one of which was this fella.’ Donaldson pointed the mouse at the computer. A face appeared on the screen. It was a grainy, black and white head-shot of a bearded man of Middle-Eastern origin. The sort of photo Henry had seen hundreds of times in the media over the last few years, particularly after 9/11. Dark-haired, bearded, staring, deadly eyes peering out accusingly.

Clicking the mouse again, a caption slid across the screen accompanied by a sound effect: a machine gun firing. It made Henry jump.

‘Mohammed Ibrahim Akbar,’ Donaldson said. ‘That’s only one of his names, by the way — he’s got dozens of others. And just so you know where I’m coming from, I’ve been hunting this son of a bitch down ever since he was involved in the bombing of the Nairobi embassy in ’98 … as well as doing my day job. Two of my closest friends died that day.’

‘I never knew,’ Henry said simply.

‘You didn’t have to.’

Something else. Another hidden facet to Karl Donaldson which slightly scared Henry.

‘Anyway, he’s been on the FBI most wanted list for maybe eight years now. He’s an Al-Qaeda enforcer, very, very skilled at brainwashing, explosives, firearms, torture, a superb marksman and good at killing people at close quarter … connected to many atrocities around the world, both as a planner and executioner, if you will. Extremely good at his job. And one of Osama Bin Laden’s top travelling men.’ The words were tinged with a grudging respect. ‘But if I didn’t have a day job, and I’d been given the permission, I’d’ve tracked the bastard down by now single-handed,’ Donaldson said bitterly, with no bravado. ‘Do you recall the American journalist kidnapped in Pakistan last year, guy called Lonsdale, a Reuters man?’

Henry shook his head. There were so many, a new kidnapping hardly even registered with him now.

‘He was beheaded. It was shown on the Internet.’ Donaldson clicked the mouse and a fuzzy video clip began to run on the screen. This showed a dishevelled man sitting tied to a chair, his face a terrible mess of cuts, bruises and swellings. His head lolled loosely.

A figure appeared behind the man dressed in loose white overalls. He took up a position to one side of the hostage.

‘Guy on the chair is Lonsdale. Guy behind is Akbar.’

Suddenly Akbar grabbed Lonsdale’s hair and yanked his head back, exposing the throat. In his free hand he held a large, curved knife, which he placed against Lonsdale’s throat.

‘You’re not going to show me what I think you’re going to show me?’ Henry asked with dread.

Akbar tipped Lonsdale’s head forward so he was looking directly at the camera recording this terrible event. His eyes were wide, bulging with fear. The knife was still at his throat.

‘Know why he did that?’ Donaldson asked.

‘Did what?’

‘Pushed his head forwards again?’

Henry shook his head.

‘Because if his head is back, it’s kind of counterproductive,’ he said, matter-of-fact, his eyes staring emotionless at the screen. ‘It allows the main arteries to slip back and be protected by the windpipe. And I’ll bet you thought the guillotine was bad. That’s a walk in the park in comparison to this.’

With one smooth, practised, hard stroke, Akbar slit Lonsdale’s throat.

Henry recoiled in horror, turning his head away. ‘Jesus!’ he croaked.

‘ Allah ,’ Donaldson corrected him cynically. ‘He then proceeds to hack his head off …’

‘Turn it off,’ Henry said disgustedly. ‘Point made — whatever the point was.’ He was appalled by the spectacle.

Stone-faced and silent, Donaldson clicked the mouse and the picture dissolved into white screen.

‘He used that knife and a tenon saw. Fortunately we believe Lonsdale was drugged up to the eyeballs, if that’s any comfort … his body hasn’t yet been found, nor his head.’

‘OK, where is this leading?’ Henry demanded. This whole thing had started off as a killing of a squalid private eye, leading to a domestic murder and now here he was, head reeling, plunged into a world of terrorism. He could hardly believe what was happening.

‘Our friend in Spain had come across Akbar as the Madrid bombings were being planned and a couple of times since,’ Donaldson said, going back to his original story. ‘Akbar does a lot of work brainwashing young, gullible Muslims who then merrily strap explosives on to themselves and walk into a crowded market to kill a hundred people and then they go to their vision of heaven. The suspect blabbed that he’d heard Akbar was operating in Britain, masterminding a series of bombings which were to culminate in the assassination of Condoleezza Rice on her visit to your good country — a coup that, Akbar claims, will be his crowning glory, one he would gladly die doing, apparently.’