Chris Ryan - Osama

He’d got it wrong. Surely he’d got it wrong…

‘ …know that His law is retaliation in kind. The killers will be killed… whoever obeys Him will enter the Garden, whoever disobeys Him will be refused… by the will of the Prophet my people can strike you down with ease… ’

The screen went blank. Joe continued to stare at it for a handful of seconds.

He hadn’t got it wrong. The eleventh of May was today.

Joe was on his feet and hurtling up the stairs three at a time. As he burst into the bedroom he startled Eva. Conor was still motionless on the bed. Joe strode over to the cardboard box that had contained the DVDs and grabbed the A4 sheet again. He scanned down it: the first five flight numbers were adjacent to airport codes that he recognized: Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Edinburgh, Belfast. The following five were American: Portland, San Diego, Minnesota, Detroit, Chicago.

He checked the flight times. All the UK flights were scheduled to leave at or around 1000 hours, the US flights any time between five and seven hours earlier local time, because of the time differences.

Ten planes. All in the air at the same time.

A video of bin Laden, clearly recorded before the raid in Pakistan, gloating about a fucking spectacular to take place today.

‘What time is it?’ Joe breathed still staring at the piece of paper in his shaking fist.

Eva didn’t answer.

‘ What’s the fucking time? ’ he yelled. He spun round, to see Eva’s pale face looking warily at him. Conor had started to cry. Joe rushed over to the other side of the room, grabbed Eva’s wrist and looked at her watch: 0744 hours. Two hours and sixteen minutes. Could he get to one of the airports on the list in that time? Not a fucking chance.

‘Joe, what’s wrong?’

He didn’t answer. Not immediately. His mind was turning over. ‘Where’s your phone?’ he said.

With obvious pain, Eva pushed herself to her feet and pulled her phone from her pocket. Joe grabbed it.

No service.

‘ Fuck! ’ he hissed.

‘What is it?’ Eva groaned. She’d collapsed back down onto the bed and was holding her wound. Joe found himself clutching his hair. Everything was spinning. He didn’t know what to do … ‘Joe, what is it ?’

Words started to spill out of him. ‘There’s a terrorist plot. Ten planes, flight times 1000 hours UK time. They’ll all be in the air at once. Ashkani’s behind it.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I just know!’ Joe roared.

Eva looked stricken. ‘What about security? I mean, it’s impossible, isn’t it, to get explosives on-board a plane nowadays? All the checks… How are they doing it?’

Joe put a lid on his exploding temper. ‘Could be anything,’ he hissed. ‘Maybe the fucking pilots are involved… or the baggage handlers. I don’t know. If some fucker wants to blow themselves up…’ He was pacing up and down, feeling like he was being ripped apart. He had to do something, warn someone. But who would listen to him? The whole fucking world thought he was unhinged and dangerous. An anonymous call would be ignored. He didn’t know how the strike was going to happen, and he couldn’t reach any of the airports in time.

And – he looked over his shoulder at Conor and Eva – he needed to be here.

‘You have to go,’ Eva said.

He blinked at her.

‘I mean it, Joe. You have to go now.’ She winced as she spoke, and clutched her side again. ‘I’ll be fine. I can look after Conor…’

‘You’re too weak.’

She stood up again. It was clearly an immense effort.

‘Ten planes, Joe,’ she whispered. ‘How many lives is that? Hundreds? Thousands? How many more people are you going to let him kill?’

The question hung in the air between them. And Joe knew she was right. He nodded and crossed to the other side of the room. The Glock was still in its box. Almost as a reflex, he clicked out the magazine, then loaded and locked it. ‘You know how to use this thing?’ he asked.

Eva nodded, but when she took the weapon from him, she held it tentatively, like an amateur.

‘You won’t need it,’ Joe said. ‘We’re in a safe house. I don’t think anybody except Ashkani knows about this place.’ He looked over at Conor. ‘Take care of him,’ he said.

‘What are you going to do?’

Joe narrowed his eyes. The answer to that question wasn’t even clear in his own mind.

‘Anonymous tip-offs are no good,’ he said. ‘They get hundreds a day, and without knowing how they’re getting their explosives on-board…’ He closed his eyes. ‘I can’t turn myself in – nobody will listen to me. And I can’t get to any of those airports, which means I can’t get anywhere near the target flights.’

Eva couldn’t stop the panic rising in her face. ‘But if you can’t persuade anyone to ground these ten flights…’ she breathed, ‘what can you do?’

Joe opened his eyes again. A sudden calm had descended on him. Like in the old days, before an op. Everything was clear. He knew what he had to do.

‘Joe?’

‘Give me your watch.’

She obliged and he looked at it: 0746 hours. Two hours and fourteen minutes to go. Joe put the watch on his wrist and opened his shoulder bag. The Galil .308 was there, separated into its component parts. Lurking at the bottom was the ammo he had confiscated from the scene: the match-grade rounds that had been loaded into the weapon, but also a small box of HE incendiary rounds. Overkill – literally – for taking out an individual, but for what Joe had in mind…

‘ Joe? ’

If he couldn’t ground the planes in danger, there was only one other option open to him. To ground every plane – both sides of the Atlantic. Full stop.

‘Don’t let go of the gun. Keep an eye on Conor. I’ll be back.’

Without another word, Joe raced from the room, down the stairs and out of the house. The motorbike was back with the Range Rover. They were parked two klicks away. If he pushed himself, he could cover the distance in five or six minutes. He sprinted, spurred on by the certain knowledge that if he failed, bin Laden’s curtain call would be complete.

Hundreds of people would die.

Time was not on his side.

0800 hours.

The motorbike was still lying where Joe had left it after returning to Eva, on its side by the Range Rover in the small car park opposite the church. The helmet, lying next to the vehicle, was soaked with dew. Joe’s muscles were burning as he hauled it up from its hiding place. His dirty clothes were drenched with sweat. Tightening the straps of the rucksack over his back, he pulled on the helmet, started the engine and screeched past the Range Rover into the road.

As Joe roared down the deserted lanes, the speedometer topped eighty even on sharp bends, which he hugged tightly. Hedgerows and fields were nothing but blurs in the corner of his eyes. There were still patches of early-morning mist compromising his visibility as he cut through them. All his attention was on the road ahead. The wind cut through him, sticking his sweat-soaked clothes to his clammy skin, and before long he was very cold. He knew he should stop and move around. He vaguely tried to remember when he had last eaten. All he could do, though, was drive, and drive as hard and as fast as the bike would go.

The jagged form of the Galil in his rucksack dug into his back. It was comforting. Although he knew that if he was pulled over, the presence of such a weapon would be enough to get him arrested, at least he had the tool he needed to deal with the police. Because his word wouldn’t be enough to ground so much as a paper dart. Disgraced and discredited, he was going to have to be rather more persuasive. And there weren’t many things more persuasive than an incendiary .308.