Contents (84)
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- SIXTY-ONE
- SIXTY-TWO
- SIXTY-THREE
- SIXTY-FOUR
- SIXTY-FIVE
- SIXTY-SIX
- SIXTY-SEVEN
- SIXTY-EIGHT
- SIXTY-NINE
- SEVENTY
- SEVENTY-ONE
- SEVENTY-TWO
- SEVENTY-THREE
- SEVENTY-FOUR
- SEVENTY-FIVE
- SEVENTY-SIX
- SEVENTY-SEVEN
- SEVENTY-EIGHT
- SEVENTY-NINE
- EIGHTY
- EIGHTY-ONE
- EIGHTY-TWO
- EIGHTY-THREE
- Acknowledgements
Cooke’s harshly worded sentiments were basically correct
– Dempsey knew that – but he also knew a whole lot more. Other factors that he could not ignore. Things he had done. Things he had to make up for.
What was the saying? he thought. Having red in the ledger?
Dempsey had so much red in his ledger that he would never erase it all. He had accepted that long ago. But the last thing he wanted was to add any more.
‘I don’t think it’s as simple—’ he began.
The sound of Dempsey’s landline telephone interrupted his words.
‘I need to answer that,’ he explained as he rose to his feet. ‘Only the Director’s office has that number.’
‘I take it I won’t be giving you any Hail Mary’s today, then,’ Cooke called out as Dempsey slipped through the metal framed door and back into the apartment’s main room.
Cooke was right. For now, confession was over.
EIGHT
PAN-ATLANTIC AIRLINES FLIGHT PA16 FROM LONDON HEATHROW TO NEW YORK JFK CRASHES OVER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN.
The abrupt headline was all that filled Nizar Mansour’s mind as he rushed along the streets of Stoke Newington. The news – and what it meant for him– was seared onto his brain.
He could focus on nothing else.
The short walk from the Rose and Crown to his small bedsit usually took five minutes, but tonight Mansour had been walking for at least ten. He needed time to rationalise what he had learned – to understand it – and so he had taken a longer route.
He lit a cigarette, his third of the walk. Benson and Hedges brand. They were the closest he could find to the harsher, stronger cigarettes of home, and yet they were pathetically weak in comparison. Usually Mansour could ignore the difference, but right now he craved the rougher hit of an Alhamraa.
It was a momentary distraction. How could it be anything else? A thought banished almost immediately and replaced by the jumbled barrage of questions that had fuelled him this far.
What if it was not a bomb?
What if it was just coincidence?
Did they lie to me?
If they had, why?
And why had they still not called?
They were questions that answered themselves. Mansour knew that, even as his mind whirled, desperate to find a more palatable version. Knowing and accepting are very different things but ultimately, when all alternatives have been rejected, the truth is all that remains.
A truth that Mansour could finally see.
It has to be bomb, he told himself. It has to be.
Like many of his countrymen, Mansour’s unskilled job in the UK did not reflect his profession in Syria. Before the war he had been a mechanical engineer and so he knew the difference between impact and explosion. And from what little he had been able to see on screen, there could be no doubt that Flight PA16 had exploded while still at altitude.
It was rare that anything but an incendiary device could cause such a catastrophic event in a state-of-the-art aircraft. But in this case? With everything else Mansour knew?