phone shut just as the Iraqi translator came to a halt before them. The American and the Arab looked at each other for a moment.
Andy cracked. ‘Is somebody going to tell me what the fuck’s going on?’
CHAPTER 5
8.45 a.m. GMT
He took off from JFK at just after ten at night. Not a popular time to take a flight so there were plenty of seats in business class. He had checked in effortlessly using his Mr Ash identity. The passport paperwork was good, impeccable. It always was.
Ash.
A good enough name for this particular errand. It was fun anyway, assuming a stolen identity, trying to imagine what the real Mr G. J. Ash was like, to get a feel for the person who had lived in this particular skin for the last thirty-seven years. Not that it mattered greatly.
For the duration of this task, he was Mr Ash, no one else was, not even the real Mr G. J. Ash, whose identity had been temporarily cloned for the job. Ash was the name he imprinted on himself in his mind. Until this job was done, Ash was the only name he’d answer to.
There was a sense of urgency to this job. Time was going to work against him this time round. Things were going to start happening very soon, if they hadn’t already. When law and order began to unravel, and it would do so rapidly, it would get theoretically very difficult for him to find his given target. So he was going to have to work as quickly as possible.
Ash looked out of the window at the grey Atlantic below.
Leona Sutherland. Eighteen. Occupation: student. Current residence: University of East Anglia campus.
He had no problem with this target. She was a girl, just a child still. But far more important than that, she was a security risk. A very big risk, certainly right now, with what was going on.
Quickly in and quickly out.
He’d make sure she died quickly and painlessly, he could at least do that; after all it wasn’t her fault she was a security risk. Leona Sutherland had made a simple mistake, adding a ‘PS’ to an email, that’s all - half-a-dozen words tagged on to a chatty email to her father . . . words it seemed, she hadn’t set out to write but had popped into her head at the last moment.
Unfortunately, those few words were going to be her death sentence.
Ash sighed.
How careless people are with what they say, blurting out things - intentionally, unintentionally - that are best left unsaid. He often thought most of the pain and death and misery in the world was caused by people unable to keep inside them what should rightly stay there.
This wasn’t going to be his finest hour though, killing an innocent child, but it was necessary. It was a lesser evil for a greater good.
He was clearing up a few loose ends which to be honest, he should have been allowed to do years ago. Those foolish old men had let the little girl walk out of that hotel room alive.
That’s why they needed people like him; to tidy up after them.
CHAPTER 6
12.35 p.m. GMT Manchester
Jenny stepped out of the swing-doors on to Deansgate and took a deep, deep breath.
‘I’ve got it!’ she whispered to herself, clutching her hand into a fist and discreetly punching the air when she was sure no one was looking.
The interview had been so much easier than she expected it would be. She had made them laugh a couple of times, everyone’s body language seemed to be relaxed and open. Jenny felt she had been on to a winning ticket from the moment she walked into the interview room. It was just one of those things, they all clicked.
The give-away, or so she felt, was towards the end when one of the lads asked her how much notice she would need to serve out with her current employer.
‘I’ve got it,’ she muttered to herself again, as she walked down Deansgate towards a café bar she’d spotted on the way to the interview.
Of course they couldn’t say to her ‘you’ve got it’. There were several more applicants they had to see that afternoon. It would be improper, unprofessional even, to do that. But in every other way - how they had said goodbye, the way they shook hands, nodded and made eye-contact screamed to her we’ll be in touch.
She grinned in a way she hadn’t for a long time. It felt like one giant