Chris Ryan - Osama

From anyone else, the words would have been inadequate. From Eva, they were everything.

‘Go to sleep,’ she said. ‘I’ll wake you if anybody comes.’

Joe nodded. His fatigue was overpowering everything else. He sensed Eva removing the overcoat and spreading it over him.

His eyelids became heavy.

In seconds he was asleep.

It was midnight.

A dark-haired man with stooped shoulders stood in a quiet suburban street. The rain was still falling, but that made no difference to him as he wore a heavy waxed raincoat. Its pockets were equally weighted on either side: in the left one, a small, leather-bound copy of the Koran. In the right, a Browning semi-automatic pistol and two cable ties.

The house opposite which he stood had, as a focal point of the front garden, a magnificent magnolia tree in the early stages of budding. It also had, the man noticed, a flashing burglar alarm and one window open on the first floor. People only opened windows at night to give themselves ventilation as they slept. It meant someone was home.

He crossed the road, opened the front gate, passed under the magnolia branches, and rang the front door bell. He heard no chime, but a red light by the button indicated that it was working. Twenty seconds later, through the glass of the front door, he saw a landing light come on and the silhouette of a figure descending the stairs rather slowly, apparently tying a dressing-gown cord as he went. The figure stopped on the other side of the front door. ‘Who’s that?’ The male voice sounded elderly and tired.

‘Police,’ the man replied. ‘I need to speak to you about Conor. I know it’s late but this is urgent. We think you might be in some danger.’

A short pause. Then a click as the door opened to reveal a man in his late sixties, a pair of half-moon spectacles propped on his hook-like nose, the remnants of his hair in two dishevelled tufts on either side of his head, and wearing a navy blue kimono-style dressing gown. ‘You’d better come—’

The man stopped short, perhaps realizing that his guest was not uniformed, nor did he have the demeanour of a policeman. Then his eyes darted down and he saw the Browning in the man’s left hand. On an instinct, he tried to slam the door shut, but the man already had one foot over the threshold – enough to keep it open.

‘Be so good, Mr O’Donnell,’ said the man, ‘as to keep utterly quiet as you step back from the door.’

Mr O’Donnell did as he was told. Within seconds the man was inside and the door was shut.

The first thing he noticed was the smell of flowers. The wide hallway was lined with bouquets of lilies and roses, all of them still in their plastic wrappers, with notes of condolence tucked into the foliage. As the old man staggered back, he knocked over one of the bouquets.

‘The boy?’

Mr O’Donnell shook his head, as if to say that he wasn’t going to answer, but the newcomer noticed the way his eyes glanced momentarily up the carpeted staircase at the end of the hallway. He flicked the gun in that direction, and O’Donnell backed nervously up the stairs, unable to keep his eyes off the weapon. He stumbled into a sitting position a quarter of the way up the stairs, making a heavy thump that seemed to echo around the whole house.

‘Get up, turn around, keep walking,’ said the man. O’Donnell had no choice but to agree.

There were three doors on the landing. Two were open. One led into a small bathroom, the other into a bedroom where the light was on and the head end of a double bed was visible. It meant that the third door was the one he wanted. ‘Open it,’ he told O’Donnell. ‘Wake him.’

‘Please,’ the old man croaked. ‘He hasn’t spoken since… You don’t know what he’s been through.’

But that wasn’t true. The intruder knew just what he’d been through. He knew the boy would be traumatized. That would make him easier to handle. ‘Wake him,’ he repeated.

The terrified old man staggered into the bedroom. ‘Conor,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Conor, you must wake up.’

As the intruder followed him into the little bedroom, he switched on the light. The boy was drowsily sitting up in a single bed against the far wall, clutching a small grey soft toy in the shape of an elephant. Next to him stood a white bedside table on which were a glass of water, a framed photograph of a woman and a Horrid Henry book. At the other end of the bed was a matching chest of drawers. There was no indication that this was ordinarily a child’s bedroom – no toys or pictures, just a figurine of the Virgin Mary on a melamine shelf along the left-hand wall, and a wooden chair with some neatly folded clothes.

It took a few seconds for the boy to realize what was happening, by which time the intruder had raised a gloved finger to his lips. ‘Shhh…’ he hissed gently, before turning back to the old man. ‘On your knees,’ he whispered.

The old man sank to the ground.

‘My name is Mr Ashe,’ said the man to the boy. ‘You must do exactly what I say. Do you understand?’

Conor nodded mutely.

‘Go to your drawer. Remove two pairs of socks and give them to me.’

Like his grandfather, the boy could not take his eyes from the gun. He crawled the length of his bed and fumbled in the top drawer before removing the socks as he had been told. One pair was plain black, the second had a Spider-Man logo. He handed them to Mr Ashe, then quickly retreated to the pillow end of his bed.

Mr Ashe stepped up to O’Donnell. ‘Open your mouth,’ he instructed, and when the old man had done so, he stuffed the Spider-Man socks inside, pressing down so that they reached the back of his throat, before filling the remaining cavity with the second pair. The old man gagged, and his eyes bulged, but he remained immobile in the kneeling position Mr Ashe had forced him to adopt.

Mr Ashe removed one of the cable ties from his coat and tied the old man’s hands behind his back, speaking as he worked in a quiet, unflustered voice.

‘I want you to watch your grandfather very carefully,’ he said. ‘I want you to understand, and to remember, how much this will hurt him.’

The old man made a panicked sound and tried to stand up, but Mr Ashe was too fast for him. He wrapped the second cable tie around his victim’s neck and yanked it tight.

The noise was disgusting: a feeble croak accompanied by the unmistakable sound of the old man pissing himself in fear. His neck bulged outwards and became red, blue and blotchy. He fell to his side, flailing like a landed fish, growing weaker and weaker as the seconds passed.

He had, Mr Ashe, estimated, no longer than thirty seconds of consciousness left. It was important to make the most of them.

He stepped round the old man and approached the bed. The boy cringed away from him, backing into the corner, pulling his duvet with him. His lower lip was trembling, and tears had appeared in his eyes.

Mr Ashe held the gun up to the boy’s head. He made a sudden small movement with the weapon. The child started and closed his eyes, before opening them again five seconds later, apparently surprised that he was still alive.

‘You understand, Conor,’ whispered Mr Ashe, ‘what will happen if you do not do exactly as I tell you?’

The boy’s terrified nod was barely visible. But it was enough. Mr Ashe tucked his weapon back into his coat. ‘If you make a sound,’ he said, ‘I will kill you. If you try to run, I will kill you. If you fail to do what I say, I will kill you. Are you sure you understand, Conor?’

The little boy nodded.

‘Good,’ said Mr Ashe. ‘Then get dressed. Now.’

0600 hours.

Eva walked through the main entrance into Scotland Yard.