Chapter 18

Jules sat perched on the edge of a large block of debris and stared at the spot where the truck full of children had disappeared into the horizon.

Her vision grew blurry as she stared at the same spot for so long but she didn't care. They had gotten away.

They had gotten away with Safia.

And they had been so close.

"Urgh," Julia groaned as she leant forward and dropped her head into her hands.

Her hair had come loose from its fixings allowing Julia to slip her fingers in a little ways allowing her to brush the small bits of stone and brick out of her hair when she brushed something tender.

Wincing, Julia drew back to find fresh blood on her fingertips.

She stared at it for a long moment, dazed, when she heard the crunch of boots approaching and she looked up, dropping her hand behind her.

It was Marc. A large gash ran from the bottom of his ear and across his neck from where he had skidded across the floor. The blood had dried on his skin, coagulating with the grains of sand which covered his skin.

"Okay?" He asked her with concern.

"I haven't forgotten the last five years if that's your worry," Julia snapped, her head throbbing from where she assumed it had hit the ground- she wasn't too sure.

Marc turned half away from her in frustration, "That isn't what I meant."

Julia looked up and saw the way his jaw was clenched.

Julia sighed, "Sorry. I'm just . . ."

"I know," Marc turned back around to reassure her, reaching out his hand to her shoulder but Julia leapt to her feet to avoid him touching her.

It felt like sympathy and she had fucked up! The children had gotten away and her eagerness had led her team straight into a trap. A death trap!

Any of them could have been killed.

"We're going to find her, Jules," Marc told her, "We're going to find all of them."

Julia wanted to believe him but as she looked back in the direction the truck had driven off she knew that they had no way to track them.

They were back to square one and they had lost the element of surprise. The terrorists-come-kidnappers knew that they were being hunted. They would escalate their terror and Julia feared what that meant, not only for Safia, but for all of them.

"Marc! Jules!" A voice boomed across the open space.

Spinning around, her fingers reached for the weapon resting from a strap across her shoulders, Jules stumbled over her own feet before she caught herself.

Looking up, Jules saw Kazeem racing across to them and it felt like a firework had been set off right in front of her.

The fireworks turned to sparks which turned to flashes of gunfire. The smell of burning made her nostrils flare and she looked around to find that a building was on fire across from her, lighting up the night sky like a bonfire on Guy Fawkes Night.

Her eyes flickered around her wildly, her breathing coming in rapid short gasps as she watched Afghani men flee towards vehicles in the far distance.

They were followed by people in tactical suits she realised when she heard someone shout her name.

"REYNOLDS! SHOOT HIM!"

The voice was garbled the moment it reached her ears until she was unable to make out who was speaking, but their words were clear.

Frowning, Julia looked down at her hands and saw the high-spec assault rifle in her gloved hands, already set against her shoulder and poised ready to shoot.

Looking back up, she saw that a twenty-something young man whose turban had started to come loose atop his head and whose eyes were filled with fear was her target.

He looked like a young boy who had just realised he had made all the wrong decisions in his life.

She felt her finger tighten on the trigger.

Julia!

She could feel her heart thumping against the walls of her chest cavity, her blood pounding in ears, as she settled her cheek against the weapon and looked down the scope, her vision automatically turning into shades of green from the night-vision.

Jules!

She felt someone calling to her but at the same time she realised that she felt a deep resentment against this young man. Not because of his nationality but against him personally.

Her anger and pain filled her up so much that the moment she refocused her scope on his body, she pulled the trigger.

The scene slowed tremendously so that the flash of the bullet leaving the nozzle of the weapon filled her entire vision.

Holding her breath, Jules's heart felt as if it were suspended in mid-air.

When the flash disappeared she found herself back in the compound stood before Kazeem and Marc, her knuckles white from where they were gripping her weapon hard.

"Jules!" Marc shouted, waving a hand in front of her face.

Dropping her rifle as if it was red hot, she swatted his hand away.

"What? What is it?" She shook her head to remove the fogginess that lingered there, quickly regretting the action when the throbbing in her head returned with a vengeance.

"You kind of disappeared there for a second," Kazeem told her and Julia stared at him shock.

Had she disappeared!? Was that what that was? Had she somehow pulled off a time and space teleportation type of thing?

"Not . . . literally disappeared," Kazeem frowned, looking to Marc in confusion.

Jules sighed; she should have known that there wouldn't be a simple explanation.

"You just kind of dazed out," Marc took a step towards her and placed his hands on either side of her head, "How hard did you hit your head?"

"I'm fine," Julia grabbed his wrists and moved his hands away from her.

"So, Kazeem," Julia looked around them distractedly to make sure that there was no building on fire and that it was still late afternoon rather than pitch darkness, "What was so urgent?"

She didn't know how to feel when she found everything the same as when she left it.

Kazeem didn't respond and his quietness unnerved Jules more.

Turning back to look at him, she frowned when she saw the look of dread on his face, "You should probably see it for yourselves."

Julia and Marc looked at each other before they turned and followed Kazeem.

He led them past the pile of debris and into the building next door.

Hassan was stood outside, kicking at the dust on the ground, when he looked up and saw them approach. The strange look upon his face as he stared at them did not help Julia's feelings of foreboding.

What the hell were they about to discover?

They stepped through the doorway into a long corridor, similar to the other building.

"Have you checked for explosives?" Marc asked.

Kazeem nodded, "It's completely wired."

They stopped and looked at him.

"Don't worry, Carlos has disarmed it."

His words did not ease Julia's worries.

"Something about the responder not working, I do not know but we should be safe." Kazeem carried on walking.

Raising her eyebrows, Julia followed him to the last door on his left which opened into a large room. Tables had been pushed up against the walls, ladened down with documents and pieces of paper as were the walls.

Julia's first thought was that it looked like a tactical room, just without the white boards.

Her little episode a few minutes ago was completely forgotten as a dozen different scenarios ran through her head, each one worse than the last and they didn't get any better when she saw the faces of Carlos and Twitch.

Carlos looked at Jules with some secret gaze that only the two of them would understand from their previous clandestine work together and she translated it as the shit was about to hit the fan.

It was not a comforting translation, even more so when she saw that Twitch's face had begun to twitch uncontrollably from which he had earnt his nickname. She wasn't sure if it was a subconscious reaction to something he had seen.

"What is all this?" Marc asked as Jules turned and was drawn to a large document stuck to the centre of the back wall.

It was larger than the other pieces of paper and it was covered in lines of blue and white.

Carlos and Twitch were unsure of where to begin as Jules continued to investigate the strange drawing.

Something about it appeared familiar when she reached out and lifted the corner of a separate page which had been stuck too high and covered the lower half of the poster.

As she peeled it back, it revealed a sort of key to decode the blue and white lines and Jules recoiled in horror as she realised what it was.

She suddenly realised why Carlos looked at her the way he did.

"We need to call Strong." She swallowed, unable to tear her eyes off what she now realised was a blueprint.

"Why?" Marc asked.

"Cause this is about to get a whole lot worse."

* * *

Raising the mug to his lips Strong felt the sweet nectar of coffee pass over his tongue and kept drinking.

When he put the mug down it was empty and he gasped for air, enjoying the feeling of it warming his empty stomach and giving him that much needed adrenaline boost as he waded through paperwork.

Called into MI5 for a meeting on their next plan, Strong found it surprisingly easy to lie when he told them that he had no idea where Marc and his team were.

They did not believe him of course but they could do nothing to him until they had proof. Proof he had no willingness to give them unless it proved absolutely necessary.

Sat at a desk in Michael Truro's control room, replaying the footage, Strong tapped his fingers against the side of the desk and thought of his Marines.

He wondered where they were now and if they were making any progress when the he heard the secured door into the control room buzz open. Looking across the desks of the other people, Strong saw an office-clerk sort of man hurry towards Michael's office at the back.

The young man was holding his ID badge against his chest as he ran so that it did not hit him in the face.

Strong was not the first to notice the development and people began to turn in their seats to watch the man rush up and knock on Michael's door.

Developments had been few and far between on this case and the eagerness in the room was undeniable as everyone's eyes were glued to the office window as the man entered.

They were too far away to see what they were talking about when someone stood became distracted by a soft, muffled ringing coming from the bag at his feet.

Those nearest to him turned at the noise. Mobile phones were forbidden in the control room but it wasn't a mobile that rang in his bag.

Turning and looking at the bag where the satellite phone rested inside Strong froze for a moment, his heart heavy in his chest.

He told them only to contact him in an emergency and for the briefest moment he did not want to pick it up.

He could not bear to hear it if his unsanctioned actions had gotten one of his Marines killed.

But then he remembered his duty and reached down for the bag.

Unzipping the bag, he reached in and pulled out the satellite phone. He did not have time to get somewhere private as he accepted the call and pressed it to his ear.

Hunching over at his desk, he tried to keep it as secret as possible, "Yes?"

"Commander," Marc's voice crackled over the connection.

Strong was glad to hear he was alive but he knew that something had to be wrong or else they would not be having this phone call, "What is it?"

"We found them sir, but they got away," Marc replied.

Strong's hand curled into a fist when he heard commotion behind him and he turned to see Michael Truro hurrying out of his office and towards the front of the room where a floor-to-ceiling screen, made up of multiple screens currently displaying different pieces of intel, lay before them.

Beside him was the beautiful Samantha McAndrew but the clerk was nowhere to be seen.

"Bring it up on the big screen!" Michael pointed at someone in the corner but it was too dark to see who.

"But that isn't why I am calling sir," Marc continued, "There's been a . . . development."

Strong was eager to hear when the multiple screens turned into one large screen footage of a drone passing over a compound in Afghanistan.

He watched closely as a truck drove away from a building right before the drone turned into heat seeking mode and he saw four heat signatures still inside the building, hurrying towards the exit when it exploded, filling the screen in bright, aghast colours.

"Langdale," Strong slowly whispered as the drone turned off heat seeking and he watched a cloud of smoke and dust, "Where are you?"

Strong told him the co-ordinates from the corner of the drone footage and Marc confirmed it.

"But Commander I need to-"

Strong watched as the drone maneourved around and came back to a truck driving into the distance before those in control of the drone decided to fixate on facial recognition of those lying unconscious in the debris.

"Commander," Marc almost shouted, "You need to listen to me."

The database images of Langdale and him team popped up on the screen along with two known associates.

Michael Truro and Samantha McAndrew, along with a few others, turned to look at Strong in judgement.

Strong however was too preoccupied as he listened to Marc and could not quite believe what he was hearing.

"Commander Strong," Michael marched up to his desk, "Would you care to tell me why your men have been spotted in-"

"Say that again," Strong slowly rose to his feet as Marc finished speaking, ignoring Truro, "Very slowly, say that again."

Truro and McAndrew shared a look.

Strong looked in horror from the drone footage to Truro and everyone around him.

They had yet no idea what was happening- what was going to happen and he did not know how to put it into words himself.

"Okay," Strong muttered, shocked, "Keep the phone close. I'll ring you back soon with directions."

"You shall be calling no one with directions-" Sam McAndrew's matriarchal voice began.

"-There is going to be a terrorist attack on London," Strong repeated Marc's words to himself, trying to get over the shock of it.

"What?" Truro exclaimed, looking at McAndrew.

Strong looked at Truro and then at those around him. Everyone had stopped what they were doing and watching him, their blank faces currently unaware of the threat they faced.

Broadening his shoulders, Strong spoke clearly and without reservation as he declared, "There is going to be a terrorist attack on London."

Truro and McAndrew simply stared at him as if he had just grown a second head.