Imposter 13

Book 3: Sleeper 13

by Rob Sinclair

Genres: Spy Thrillers; Terrorism & Assassination Thrillers; Action & Adventure; Military Thrillers; Psychological Thrillers; Suspense; High-tech & Sci-fi Thrillers

Synopsis

THE EXPLOSIVE FINALE TO THE SLEEPER 13 SERIES

Against all odds, Aydin Torkal - aka Sleeper 13 - broke free from the terrorist group that took him as a child and raised him into a life of violence and hate.

In the two years since, he's been tracking and killing those responsible. But he's not done yet.

Now living a secret life in London, MI6 needs his help infiltrating a sinister new terrorist cell. In order to halt their deadly ambitions, he must convince the world's most dangerous terrorists that he's one of them.

He must do it before the world suffers another deadly attack.

And he must do it alone.

He is IMPOSTER 13.

THE SLEEPER 13 THRILLER SERIES HAS READERS GRIPPED:

'Perfect for spy thriller lovers and fans of I Am Pilgrim, Orphan X' - Goodreads review

'I could not put down this book' - Netgalley reviewer

'Brilliant, gripping' - Netgalley reviewer

Release date: March 5, 2020

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 322

Sample

The glittering marble columns of the cafe’s colonial terrace sparkled in the fierce sunshine. Rachel Cox, sitting in the shaded area at the back of the open-air space with her colleague Salman, took a sip from her coffee as she spied on the apartment building across the square.

‘What’s taking him so long?’ Salman, sitting next to her, said in his Eton-educated accent that to Cox, having known him for more than six months, remained an unexpected contrast to his obvious Middle Eastern origins: dark skin, thick black hair and dense stubble that reached uncommonly high on his face.

She took the last sip of her coffee. Finally, across the way she spotted the man they were looking for. Lanky and dressed in drab clothing, he stepped out of the double doors of the stone building. Cox flicked her eyes down, sank a couple of inches in her chair, trying to be as inconspicuous as she could. The man was jittery as he looked around him, but he didn’t pay any attention to Cox or Salman, and after a couple of seconds he turned and walked away in the opposite direction.

‘Ready?’ Salman asked.

Cox nodded. Salman had already paid the waiter minutes earlier, and he quickly finished his water before they both got up from their chairs. Cox noticed a couple of the local men staring at her and she once again averted her eyes, looked down. Yes she had her hijab on, to reduce offence as far as possible, but she couldn’t hide her light skin or her green eyes that clearly marked her out as a Westerner. The fact she was consorting with what looked like a local man only further added to the indignation she regularly garnered whenever out and about.

Still, she wouldn’t let the glowers put her off the task at hand, and if anyone were to question her presence here she had all the papers required to explain who she was, including her ID showing her as a visiting professor of international studies at the Sultan Qaboos University. A fake ID, that is, but a necessary backstop for a white, single female in the conservative country.

Particularly one who also just happened to work for the British government.

They headed on across the square, Cox’s eyes busy as she surveyed the people around her. None appeared suspicious, and none were taking anything more than a fleeting interest in her and Salman. As they approached the doors to the apartment building, Salman slowed and veered off to the left to look into the window of a shop selling men’s formalwear. Cox carried on her path, and reached into her pocket to grab the key for the outer doors, which Salman had pilfered the previous day.

She pushed the key into the lock and turned, then pulled open the door and stepped into the cool but dim interior with only a brief glimpse behind her before she shut the door. She paused. The small and sparse atrium was all quiet. She reached into her pocket again and took out the tiny earbud. She already had the equally tiny microphone attached to a fold in her hijab.

‘Can you hear me?’ she whispered when the earbud was in place.

‘Yes,’ came Salman’s reply.

He would remain her eyes and ears on the outside. Just in case.

Cox took a deep breath then moved for the wide stone staircase in front of her. The apartment building, in a far from seedy or downtrodden neighbourhood in the nation’s capital, had certainly seen better days, though its former glory and original class when it was built during the heavy British influence of the nineteenth century remained evident. The staircase was lined with a beautiful wrought iron banister, though the metal was rusted and its paint blistered in places, and the once perfect corners and edges of the stairs had been worn smooth from decades of footsteps and minimal maintenance.

As she headed up, Cox saw no one, though sounds of life from the apartment doors beyond came and went. On the third floor she moved along the corridor, her eyes still busy, her body primed for the unexpected. There were no CCTV cameras in the building, but she kept her head down as much as she could anyway – habit as much as anything else.

She stopped by the worn door to apartment 8 and knocked lightly. Was she expecting – hoping? – for her knock to be answered? They’d already seen Faiz Al-Busaidi leaving the building, but what of his wife, Thuriyah? Cox hadn’t seen or heard from Thuriyah, her key asset in Oman, for nearly two days, despite their hours of surveilling the apartment building.

What had happened to her?

Cox’s heart drummed with anticipation as she waited a few seconds with nothing but silence around her. She knocked again, only slightly louder this time.

‘Rachel? Are you inside yet?’ came Salman’s smooth voice in her ear. She jumped at the unexpected noise, her heart rate ramping up another few notches.

‘There’s no one here.’

‘Are you inside?’

‘I will be in a moment.’

She took the small toolset from her pocket – a torsion wrench and a series of small picks. She worked away on the lock, her nerves continuing to grow. She heard a creak somewhere towards the stairs and whipped her head round.

No one there.

She cursed under her breath, worked on the pins inside the lock again, her fingers becoming clammy and fumbling. She might have worked for MI6 for the best part of a decade, but she’d never learned to enjoy these James Bond moments one bit.

Finally the last of the pins was pushed out of the way. The lock released and Cox let out a long but quiet exhale. She pushed the door open, stepped inside and closed the door behind her as silently as she could. She stood and listened. The apartment, a simple one-bedroom affair with an open plan living space and single bedroom with an en suite, was all quiet. No lights were on and despite the sunshine outside, with the sheer curtains in the living area drawn, the apartment was strangely dull and lifeless.

‘Thuriyah?’ Cox said as a shiver ran through her, her voice only slightly more than a whisper.

Nothing in return.

At least no one had leapt out to attack her. But where the hell was Thuriyah?

‘Come on, Cox,’ Salman’s voice echoed in her ear. ‘You need to hurry up.’

He sounded more strained now, but if there’d been a problem he would have raised the alarm. He was just getting nervous, even though he had the easy job.

‘She’s not here,’ Cox said. ‘But I need to find it.’

‘If Faiz knows about––’

‘If he knows, then Thuriyah is already dead. But we still need to retrieve the information.’

‘You don’t even know what you’re looking for.’

Cox ignored that comment. She moved through into the living area. Basic didn’t come close to describing the place. The few items of furniture were old and worn, the TV was a tiny set-top box like the black-and-white one her parents still had in the spare room when she was growing up. There was a similarly old-fashioned wireless radio, and the small kitchen area was falling apart. Cox quickly looked around, inside drawers and cupboards, under furniture, behind furniture, under the items of clothing that lay strewn, and the strangely stock-piled tins and packets of food that were here and there.

Nothing.

She moved into the bedroom. No bed. Just a mattress on the floor, a single pine wardrobe and not quite matching set of drawers. Cox rifled through. Nothing of interest. She looked to the door to the bathroom. Bloody images flashed in her mind of horror movies she’d seen – the dead body in the bathtub, red streaks everywhere. She gulped as she stepped forward.

‘Cox?’

She didn’t answer. She slowly pushed the door open …

The bathroom was empty. A murky-looking shower curtain was pulled back to reveal a grimy bath. No body, no blood.

‘Where are you?’ Cox said under her breath.

‘I’m still here.’

She didn’t bother to clarify that she’d been talking to Thuriyah.

‘There’s nothing here,’ Cox said. ‘The only thing remotely of interest is a crappy laptop.’

‘You can’t take it,’ Salman said, quite snottily Cox thought. ‘That’s not what you’re there for.’

She knew that. She clenched her teeth rather than biting back. They couldn’t do anything that would risk tipping off Faiz. Stealing his laptop, whatever goldmine of information could be on there, would certainly do that.

‘I think you need to leave.’

Cox, despondently, was quickly coming to that conclusion too.

She turned, then paused.

‘This isn’t right,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Her clothes are still here. In the wardrobe there’s a whole row of abayas. Shoes too. Underwear in the drawers.’

‘Come on, Cox. What are you doing? Get out of there.’

‘But it’s all clean. All the worn clothes on the floor, in the basket in the bedroom, are his. Same with the used things in the kitchen. Only one of everything. She hasn’t been here. Not in the last few days at least.’

Salman said nothing now. Cox had worried for Thuriyah’s safety for weeks. That was the same any time she found an asset like her, who was prepared to speak out against those closest to her. Cox’s angst had naturally ramped up over the last couple of days after she’d been unable to get hold of her Thuriyah, but she’d tried her best to convince herself there was a reasonable explanation for the lack of contact.

But now?

Beyond her concern for Thuriyah’s safety, was a potentially even bigger concern. What of the intelligence that Thuriyah had promised to garner for Cox. Where was that now?

‘OK, I’m coming out,’ Cox said.

Moments later she was descending the stairs, more quickly than she’d gone up, as yet more unwelcome and gory thoughts as to Thuriyah’s fate filled her mind.

She pushed open the door at the bottom of the stairs and stepped back out into the heat, immediately spotting Salman a few yards away, back pressed up against the wall of the next building along as he casually played with his phone. He stuffed it in his pocket when he saw her and as she reached him they gave each other a casual and concocted greeting to satisfy any watchful eyes, before setting off on foot for the far end of the square.

‘What are you thinking?’ Salman asked her after a few moments of awkward silence.

What was she thinking? At that moment? Strangely, the colonial era square she was walking across reminded her of one just like it she’d seen on her first ever visit to nearby Saudi Arabia. There, in glorious sunshine, she’d relaxedly looked about the blindingly bright square, taking in the charm of the well-kept illustrious buildings lining the open space. Only to be told, quite casually, by her male chaperone, that the large stone slabs she was walking across were specifically laid with a slight inward slope to allow blood from public beheadings to drain away.

‘Cox? Talk to me.’

‘I think––’

The vibrating phone in her pocket halted her explanation. She fished for the phone and shielded the screen from the sun with her other hand.

She stopped in her tracks. Salman did so too, immediately looking nervous at the halt in their forward progress.

‘Come on, we need to go,’ he said. Cox didn’t move. ‘What is it?’

‘She’s alive,’ Cox said.

She showed him the message on the screen.

Salman shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘This isn’t … You can’t trust that.’

‘She’s alive, Salman. That’s our code. Only she knows it.’

He scoffed at that. She knew what he was thinking.

‘If she was under duress she would have included our red word,’ Cox said. ‘You know how it works.’

He held up his hand. ‘I’m not your boss. I’m just saying. That doesn’t look good to me.’

‘Regardless, she’s alive,’ Cox said. ‘And if she wants to meet, I can’t say no to that.’

Salman sighed deeply.

‘Then we’d better go get the car.’

Two hours later Salman was driving the Toyota Land Cruiser along a dusty, winding track, Muscat miles behind them and long out of view, nothing but rolling hills of sand and rocky outcrops in sight in every direction.

‘Ever wish you’d signed up for accountancy training instead?’ Salman asked as he jerked the steering wheel when the back wheels of the Land Cruiser lost traction on the sand.

‘Never,’ Cox said with absolute seriousness and conviction. She looked over at him and saw the wry smile on his face. She’d missed the fact his question had been an attempt at humour, but her answer remained. Despite the danger, this was where she belonged. What she did was for the greater good. Someone had to.

To her relief, her boss back in England, Henry Flannigan, had agreed with her desire to take Thuriyah’s message on trust. Or at least he’d gone along with it. Cox was in Oman for a reason, and just because there was a hint of trouble now, that didn’t mean the reason wasn’t still present and valid or any less important. In fact, Flannigan had taken barely any time to confirm he wanted Cox to follow the lead, which now, sitting in the Land Cruiser on the way to the remote rendezvous point, did make her question whether it was really a good thing that her boss was so brazen with her safety.

Too late to turn back.

‘I don’t know Thuriyah like you do,’ Salman said, ‘but asking to meet out here––’

‘It stacks up,’ Cox said. ‘Her family don’t come from the city. Her father was a cattle farmer. Their village is just a few miles from where we’re meeting.’

‘You’ve been before?’

‘To the meeting point?’

‘No, I meant the village. I know you’ve been to the meeting point before, you said already.’

‘I’ve been to the village too. What’s left of it at least. It’s just a cluster of ramshackle huts now. The farming in the region has all been conglomerated so most people from back then moved away.’

‘Dragged into capitalism.’

She looked over at Salman again, the same wry smile on his face. She often struggled to figure out what he was thinking, where his head was at. That wasn’t a bad thing, she mused. His mystery, when he wasn’t being a whiny sod, was actually quite intriguing.

‘When her dad died – of natural causes I might add – her mum moved across the other side of Muscat. But Thuriyah still has family in the village. An ageing aunt, a cousin and his family.’

‘So you think she’s been staying with them?’

‘We’ll soon find out.’ And Cox certainly hoped the explanation for Thuriyah’s recent evasiveness was as simple as that.

The drive to the remote destination took only another twenty minutes and they soon came over the crest of a hill to see the narrow valley beyond, the remnants of what looked like old farm buildings down below, a few hundred yards away. It wasn’t the first time Cox had met Thuriyah here, though she’d never felt this edgy about it before.

She checked her watch. Forty minutes early. Plenty of time to check the area out. From their approach, there was certainly no signs of anyone else there.

Salman pulled the car to a stop fifty yards from the crumbling remains of the farm and stopped the engine before they both got out. The sun in the desert, with no shade from buildings like in the city, was even fiercer than Cox remembered, and within seconds the skin on her face was stinging from its ferocity.

‘You check around the perimeter,’ Cox said. ‘I’ll look at the buildings.’

Salman nodded. They once again had their wireless comms to communicate with each other, and they’d patch in to Flannigan too before Thuriyah arrived. Not that he’d be able to help if anything went wrong. There was no on-hand SAS team here to kill the bad guys and whisk them away, but at least with Flannigan online, if something did happen, he would hear it and be able to take subsequent action. Little comfort to Cox really if she was already dead, but better than MI6 being none the wiser.

What they did have was eyes on Faiz back in Muscat. Or at least on his apartment. He’d returned home before Cox and Salman had left the city, and had remained there since.

The fact he was there, and seemingly just carrying on as normal, had to be a good thing, didn’t it?

Cox traipsed over to the pile of rubble that had once passed as a building – perhaps more than one. No single wall was fully intact, though open angles remained in the remnants where doors and windows would once have stood.

There were no signs of life, no signs that anyone had been here recently at all.

Cox turned and scanned the surrounding area. The location was sheltered and almost fully enclosed by the hills around it.

‘Talk about fish in a barrel,’ Cox said, as much to herself as to Salman.

She immediately regretted saying it. He was already doubting their sense in coming here.

‘Come again?’ he said.

She looked over and saw him in the distance, at the top of the hill on the eastern side.

‘Yeah, I see what you mean,’ he said. ‘But the good news is, there’s no one else here, and the road we came in on is the only one.’

She knew that already from the last time she’d been, but was comforted that Salman had come to the same conclusion.

‘Nothing you could get a vehicle across, anyway,’ Salman said. ‘It’s too rocky. If there’s an ambush here, they’ll be coming in the same way we did. If I’m over that side, I’ll get a good view of the track. A mile out at least.’

‘Sounds good.’ Cox checked her watch. ‘May as well take up positions now then.’

Cox retreated to the car but remained standing outside it. There was still more than twenty minutes until the planned meet, but not long after …

‘A single vehicle coming this way,’ Salman said.

Cox’s nervousness rose. She looked up at the outline of Salman’s figure, partially in view to her, but hopefully obscured from the track by the rocks he was crouched behind. She could see he had binoculars up to his face.

‘Can you see who’s inside?’ she asked.

‘Too far away still,’ he said. ‘It’s a big car though. An Outlander I think.’

And Thuriyah definitely had one of those. Though bizarrely hearing Salman’s words still made Cox that little bit more hesitant.

‘How far?’

‘Closing. A few hundred yards. Let me … OK I can see just one person up front. I mean … it looks like a woman. She’s wearing an abaya … ’

‘Is it Thuriyah?’

A pause. ‘Yeah. I’m pretty sure it is. Coming your way. You should see the vehicle any second.’

Cox could already hear the roar of the car’s thick tyres on the sand, and the rumble of its powerful diesel engine, but when the Outlander appeared at the top of the hill the sound carried down into the valley, reverberated around and became freakishly loud, only further adding to Cox’s angst.

From where Cox was standing, the bonnet of the Land Cruiser was between her and Thuriyah’s Outlander. If she needed to she could dive into the driver’s seat and pound the accelerator within seconds.

If …

Cox took a step away from the Land Cruiser and waved casually. The Outlander was still fifty yards from her when suddenly it swung round ninety degrees to an abrupt stop. Thuriyah’s window faced down the hill to Cox, who could make out her ‘friend’ clearly for the first time. It was definitely her. Yet that was of little relief to Cox, who could see how rattled the woman was, even at this distance.

‘Still nothing else coming this way?’ Cox asked Salman as she kept her eyes on Thuriyah.

‘Nothing. This is it. What is she doing?’

It was a good question. Thuriyah was looking down at her lap. Her lips were moving as her head slowly bobbed back and forth. Was she praying?

‘Cox, this is insane. Get in the car and drive off.’

‘Leave you here?’

‘Very funny.’

‘She’s getting out.’

The driver’s door to the Outlander opened. Cox braced herself, but didn’t move from where she was. Thuriyah took an age to step out into the open. An ankle length black abaya covered her body, a hijab covered her head and shoulders. Her face, and the fearful look on it, remained clear to see.

‘Thuriyah, what’s happening?’ Cox shouted over.

Thuriyah straightened up and looked over to Cox.

‘What the fuck is she doing?’ Salman said.

‘Thuriyah, talk to me,’ Cox shouted.

‘I have it.’

Cox paused.

‘The information?’

‘Yes. It’s all here.’

Cox took a step closer. ‘Show me,’ she shouted.

‘Cox, come on, don’t be stupid,’ Salman said.

Thuriyah nodded and edged down the bank towards Cox. She moved gingerly. One of her hands just far enough round her back that Cox couldn’t see it.

‘What’s in your hand?’ Cox said.

‘The information. I need to give it to you. Then I have to go. For good.’

Cox didn’t move now. Thuriyah kept on coming forward. She was only fifteen yards away and Cox could see the sweat droplets glistening on her forehead. Her bottom lip quivered. Cox looked her up and down. Her whole body was shaking in fact.

‘Thuriyah, stop there.’

Thuriyah didn’t.

‘Stop!’

Thuriyah paused.

‘What’s happened?’ Cox said. ‘Please. Does Faiz know?’

Mention of her husband knocked Thuriyah’s determination, but only for a second. She began moving again.

‘Cox, she’s got something.’

‘I know she fucking has!’ she blasted, her words to her unseen colleague only adding to Thuriyah’s jitters. ‘It’s OK, I’ve got a colleague here, but he’s for the safety of both of us.’

‘I told you to come alone.’

‘Thuriyah, show me what’s in your hand? A thumb drive? A disc? What is it?’

Thuriyah moved forward with more purpose. Her arm twitched and moved away from her side a couple of inches.

Cox realised for the first time what was wrong with the young woman’s appearance. The clothes, they were fine – exactly the type of clothing Thuriyah always wore. But the bulge around her waist...

‘Thuriyah, stop there!’ Cox shouted. ‘Please. I can still help you. Just tell me what’s happening.’

Thuriyah didn’t stop this time. Tears streamed down her face.

‘Show me what’s in your hand!’

Thuriyah shook her head. She was only a few steps away and Cox shuffled back.

‘Please don’t do this,’ Cox said.

But by now Thuriyah was in some sort of trance. Her steps quickened. Cox looked to the woman’s hand. Saw the metallic flash as the sun hit the object.

Then there was a boom and a thwack as a small hole was pierced in Thuriyah’s shoulder. Her face twitched. She stumbled forward.

‘No! Salman, for fuck’s sake!’

‘Cox get the fuck away!’

She wanted to help the woman, but instead she backstepped.

Another gunshot, another thwack as the bullet hit Thuriyah in the back and she dropped to her knees. Her hand came forward to stop herself falling flat on her face. For the first time Cox got a full glimpse of what she was clutching. Not a flash drive or a disc or anything of the sort.

A dead man’s switch.

‘Cox, move!’

Cox’s eyes met Thuriyah’s. She was sure she mouthed the word ‘sorry’. The next second her palm opened, releasing the pressure from the switch. Cox was mid-air, diving behind the Land Cruiser, as the crude bomb exploded.

‘Faiz did this,’ Cox stammered as Salman raced the Land Cruiser away from the farm, the vehicle jumping and clanking on its suspension as they went.

She wiped a tear from her eye and felt the streak of dirt and soot that doing so left across her cheek. She looked down at her clothes, covered in mess, soot, grit, dust, darker patches of blood from the lumps of chargrilled flesh that had flown through the air at her when the explosion had obliterated Thuriyah. She had to fight to keep her emotions in check, swallowed down hard and clenched her fists so tight her nails cut into the skin on her palms.

‘Faiz did this,’ Cox said again. ‘We have to get him.’

Again, her statement was met with silence.

‘Would you just say something!’ she shouted.

She looked over at Salman whose eyes remained on the track ahead.

‘I hear you,’ Flannigan said, his voice crackling in her ear. ‘I’m sorry.’

The last thing she needed now was his pity.

‘Please,’ Flannigan said, ‘talk me through it again. Tell me everything.’

Cox closed her eyes as she thought back to the scene. How Thuriyah had been just yards away when the blast went off. How the Land Cruiser had saved Cox from a similarly gory fate. How she and Salman had quickly searched Thuriyah’s car and the few bits of what was left that resembled a corpse before promptly leaving.

‘Cox?’

She talked Flannigan through it. Again. She knew his request wasn’t some morbid curiosity. Him getting her to recount the fatal incident was both for analysis and to help focus her mind.

‘When she first arrived, she didn’t get out of the car immediately,’ Cox said.

‘She was setting the switch,’ Salman said. ‘The explosives were already on her, but the switch had to be set. She hadn’t driven all that way clutching it.’

‘She set it herself?’ Flannigan said. ‘Why would she do that?’

Cox thought for a moment.

‘She wouldn’t. Not of her own accord.’

‘Someone forced her to?’ Flannigan said. ‘With what leverage?’

‘The intention was to kill her and me.’

‘But you’re saying she didn’t want to.’

‘No. She was forced to.’

‘There was no one else there,’ Salman said, his sour tone riling Cox.

‘No, there wasn’t,’ Cox said. ‘But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t someone else’s hand that made her do it. Perhaps she was given an ultimatum. Faiz found out about her. From that point on she was a dead woman and she knew it. But they didn’t just want her dead. If that was the case they would have already killed her. They wanted me dead too.’

‘And she just agreed to take you out at the same time?’ Salman said. ‘Why?’

‘No,’ Cox said, not hiding that she was becoming riled. ‘I imagine they blackmailed her. Perhaps they’re holding someone close to her hostage too. If she didn’t kill me, they’d kill the hostage.’

Which only made Cox feel all the worse. Had saving herself just signed someone else’s death warrant?

‘We don’t know any of that,’ Flannigan said.

‘We don’t. I’m just thinking this through,’ Cox said. ‘But there is one way we can find out.’

‘What?’ Flannigan said.

‘You want us to try and capture Faiz?’ Salman said, not sounding particularly happy by the prospect of more action.

‘He tried to have me killed!’

‘And your objective in Oman is not one of personal revenge,’ Flannigan said.

‘Faiz was sitting at home watching TV,’ Salman added. ‘He still is. If you’re saying Thuriyah was put up to this under duress, it wasn’t by him––’

‘Then he instructed it,’ Cox said.

‘Instructed others.’

‘What’s the fucking difference! The man is an extremist, his wife just tried to kill me, and he needs to be stopped!’

Salman said nothing to that. Cox could tell he was pissed off too. Given Thuriyah’s secret must have been blown, he was in danger now too, simply by association with Cox. But she had been a direct target, she firmly believed, and as long as Faiz and whoever he worked for were still out there, she remained a target. She could skulk off back to England or wherever else to escape their ire – and perhaps that’s what Salman wanted to do – but she’d much rather stand and fight.

‘Did Thuriyah have any information that could directly identify you?’ Flannigan asked.

‘Of course not. She only knew me by aliases. It’s possible someone at some point could have got a picture of me with her, but that’s it.’

‘Understood. But we do still need to know exactly what she’s told, and who she’s told it to. This is now damage limitation as much. . .