Sleeper 13

Book 1: Sleeper 13

by Rob Sinclair

Genres: High-tech & Sci-fi Thrillers; Action & Adventure; Spy Thrillers; Crime Fiction; Military Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

Smuggled to the Middle East as a child.

Trained as one of the most elite insurgents of his generation.

Forced to do things no one should, for a cause he couldn't believe in.

But as his brothers were preparing to kill, he was looking for a way out.

Now, on the eve of the deadliest coordinated attacks the world has ever seen, he finally has his chance.

He will break free and hunt down those who made him a monster.

He must draw on all his training to survive.

He is Sleeper 13.

Sleeper 13 is a fast-paced thriller filled with twists and turns and intrigue that will appeal to readers of big-hitting thrillers such as Nomad, Orphan X, The Bourne Identity and globe-trotting spy thriller I Am Pilgrim.

Release date: March 1, 2018

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 433

Sample

Chapter 1

 

Faces had always stayed with him. He could walk past a thousand people in a busy market square and pick out a familiar face in an instant, even people he hadn’t seen in years. 

From the threadbare sofa in that wreck of a Paris apartment, Aydin watched the still images of men’s faces flash up one by one on the flickering TV screen. The documentary was supposed to be about the youths of jihad; the young guys from Western Europe who travelled to the Middle East to fight for their religion. But so far all he’d seen were thugs who’d taken it upon themselves to pick up guns and bombs to live out some violent fantasy. Was it boredom that made them do it? 

All he knew was that these men weren’t the real problem for the West. Nor was it the weak-minded individuals who were so easily swayed into strapping plastic explosives to their chests. So far the real faces of Terror hadn’t featured in the programme at all. The millions of people watching had no idea who those people were. But Aydin knew. Because they were the ones who created him, and the others like him – the ones who told him what to do. 

A much more familiar face flashed on the screen. His name and ‘title’ appeared beneath the grainy photograph of his face, but the words did nothing to describe the full extent of the man’s remit. ‘Aziz al-Addad, Head of Youth Training’. To Aydin and his brothers the man was simply the Teacher. 

Aydin couldn’t hear the TV any more for the sudden onrush of memories the man’s grinning face induced in him – his barked orders, spitting venom. Aydin could hear the Teacher telling him what he had to do, his eyes bulging. His was the only way Aydin knew. 

Shaking, Aydin turned off the TV. 

Minutes later he was outside roaming the streets. In the district of Clichy-Sous-Bois he was just a few miles from Paris’s most treasured landmarks, yet in that shithole of a neighbourhood he felt several worlds away. To Aydin, the whole district was a mess of clashing cultures. Paris was the world’s capital of romance, but he couldn’t see any of that – decay and misery were too prevalent, and violence both the cause and answer to most problems. 

He kept his head down as he walked past a gang of black youths. Did they appreciate that they were no longer the centre of the white man’s ire in the city? People like Aydin had taken that mantle. 

Round the next corner he reached the same car he’d walked past dozens of times on similar nights: a battered Citroën older than he was. The street was quiet. He slipped a length of wire down the side of the Citroën’s rusted window frame and released the lock. Within seconds he was sitting in the driver’s seat, his head swimming. 

He’d hot-wired the car several times in the last few months, repeating the same ritualistic series of actions; sat there with the engine turning over loudly, thinking about driving off into the night. But he never had. Each time he simply shut the engine down, stuffed the wires back into place and pushed the lock back down on the door before leaving the car where it was. 

He wondered who the car belonged to. Did they have any idea it had been broken into? The car was always in the same spot, a thick layer of dust covering its corroded shell. It was clear it hadn’t been moved for some time. Maybe its owner had died, or moved house and left the crappy tin can behind. 

Aydin was snapped from his thoughts when he saw two men further down the street, coming his way. In the darkness, he couldn’t make out their features, though both had their heads covered with hoods. As they approached, Aydin felt his heart rate quicken. It wasn’t fear or apprehension, simply his body ready and primed for the possible threat. He pushed the gear stick into first and released the handbrake, grasping his hands tightly round the steering wheel. As the men walked beneath a streetlight their faces were caught in a flash of orange light and Aydin avoided their gazes. Did they know who they were looking at? His mind was busy trying to determine whether to thump his foot down on the accelerator and hurtle off, when the men carried on past before fading into the darkness. 

After a few seconds Aydin heaved a sigh, wrenched the handbrake, killed the engine and stepped out into the night. 

Twenty-four hours later Aydin was walking the same dark street. A long and tiring day of planning had left him weary both in body and mind, and the walk through the fresh Parisian night hadn’t yet rejuvenated him. Not least because he knew this night would end – just like all the others – in disappointment. 

No. This night was worse. As he approached the spot, he realised the Citroën wasn’t there. He spun round, looking up and down the street. No sign of it anywhere. Just an empty space, a dark outline of tarmac around where the car had been sitting untouched for so long. 

A thief? After all, the car had been unlocked for some time. Or had the owner finally reunited with the heap of junk? 

Aydin’s heart sank, as though his one solace – that dream of another life – had been torn from him. 

Confused, he couldn’t face going back to the safe house so soon. Instead he sat on a wall in the dark, took out his phone and dialled the number from memory. 

‘Hello?’ The woman’s soft voice filled his ear, her English accent smooth in the dark. He shut his eyes and kept the patchy image of her smiling face in his mind as long as he could before it cracked and faded away. 

‘Hello?’ she said again. ‘Who is this?’ 

He hung up. He didn’t want to spook her, just to hear her voice. 

When Aydin opened the apartment’s front door almost an hour later he heard the noise of the TV, and saw the lights were on. He’d hoped Khaled would be in bed, but he was sitting upright on the sofa, a sickly grin on his face. 

‘Hey, Talatashar, come and see this.’ 

Talatashar: the number thirteen in Arabic. By birth he was Aydin, but among his people he was referred to only by number. 

He slumped down beside Khaled, his attention turning to the BBC World news report playing on the TV: helicopter footage of the destruction caused by a suicide bomb attack at a market in Aleppo. Over twenty people were already known to have died, the report claimed. 

‘Good work, eh?’ Khaled said, still smiling. 

Aydin said nothing. Khaled was in his thirties – an administrator, and Aydin’s link to those who gave the orders. They weren’t friends; their relationship was one of necessity. Aydin’s ill feelings towards the man were nothing to do with their relative positions in the hierarchy, he simply hated everything about him. 

The stench of sweat and tobacco stuck in Aydin’s nose as Khaled rambled excitedly about ‘infidels’ and ‘our holy war’. Khaled’s was a face Aydin would do well to forget: that large scar stretching from his right eye to his left ear; those yellowed, misshapen teeth. 

‘And so it begins,’ Khaled proclaimed. He often spoke as if he knew what was really going on, the real story. His smile grew. ‘This is just the start.’ 

Khaled seemed to take issue with Aydin’s silence and his smirk dropped away – irked, as he often was, by Aydin’s apparent lack of enthusiasm. 

‘Allah looks upon all martyrs with the same regard, Talatashar,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing special about you.’ 

It was true, Aydin knew. He didn’t see himself as special – none of them were. 

Aydin fixed his gaze on the TV as the reporter continued. One of the known victims of the blast was a British citizen: a woman in her twenties, working in Aleppo with an international humanitarian charity. He didn’t recognise her name, but then came her picture, a small square nestled in the top corner of the screen. She was a similar age to him, her eyes squinting from the sun, a bright red lanyard dangling around her neck. 

He froze. 

It felt like he couldn’t move at all. For a moment he wondered if his heart had stopped beating. 

After a few agonising seconds, he slowly exhaled, his eyes still fixed on the face of the young woman. Her eyes. The rest of her face could have been covered but he would still know those eyes. Faces had always stayed with him. He’d not seen hers since he was a child – since the night he was taken from his bed – but he had absolutely no doubt that the dead charity worker was Nilay. His twin sister. 

 

 

Chapter 2

Aydin was shaking again, caused by something else entirely this time. He was losing control. 

‘There’ll be no place in paradise for that bitch, or any of the others,’ Khaled said. 

Aydin closed his eyes tight, trying to shut out Khaled’s voice. 

Soon everything was drowned out by the onset of rage, the throbbing of blood in his ears. As he struggled to control it, he saw his mother and twin sister Nilay in flashes. 

By the time Khaled slapped Aydin’s head to snap him out of the trance, it was too late. Aydin released a deep, guttural yell and threw his elbow out in an arc, catching Khaled in the left eye and causing his head to jerk back. He shot up from the sofa and glared down, snarling, panting. He tried to hold back, to control the beast, to not let it conquer him – but it wasn’t working. 

‘Sometimes I wish you’d just shut that ugly fucking mouth of yours for more than five seconds,’ Aydin said, fists clenched at his sides. He took a deep breath and stepped back, in two minds as to whether the situation could be defused from there, or if it had already gone too far. 

‘What the fuck is your problem anyway?’ Khaled spat, holding a hand up to his bruised face. ‘You care so much about some little Western whore?’ 

Aydin’s eyes remained on him. He could see Khaled was fuming, even as he glanced to the coffee table where the blunt knife he’d earlier used to peel an apple lay next to the twisted skin and discarded core. 

For a moment they were both looking at the knife. Part of him willed Khaled to make the move. 

Aydin lunged first, but Khaled was closer. He grabbed the blade and was up on his feet in a flash. He was a good four or five inches taller than Aydin, and a few inches thicker too. Much of the extra mass was muscle, and Aydin guessed most people would steer well clear of him under challenge. 

But Aydin wasn’t most people. 

He was on Khaled before the administrator could swing the blade round in an arc towards Aydin’s side, and he blocked easily and countered with a jab that split Khaled’s lip. Khaled came forward a second time, but Aydin blocked with force again, feeling a jarring in his lower arm from the impact of the blow, as if he’d smacked it against a lump of steel. But it didn’t stop him. Khaled was big and strong, but he wasn’t like Aydin. 

They had made damn sure of that. 

Again Khaled attacked, with everything he had left – fist and knife and feet, over and over. Aydin moved in a steady rhythm to thwart his every move, an autopilot he’d developed from childhood but had never had to utilise for real until now. Before long, a look of defeat crept across his opponent’s face. 

Then a straight fist flew towards him – a final, futile attempt. Aydin shimmied to the left, caught the arm and swivelled. Bringing his other arm around Khaled’s neck, Aydin sent him spinning over his knee and crashing to the ground. He grabbed Khaled’s knife hand, twisted it around and pushed the wrist back until it cracked. Khaled screamed in pain and dropped the blade. Aydin twisted the arm further and smacked just below the shoulder, hearing the pop as the arm dislocated. He picked up the knife and stood over Khaled, who panted and wheezed. 

‘I was right to keep my eye on you,’ Khaled spluttered through pained breaths. ‘I knew you were too weak to see this through.’ 

Aydin said nothing. 

Khaled turned over and crawled away. Aydin watched him struggle, but another snapshot of his sister’s face burned suddenly in his eyes and he had to press his palms to his temples. 

Would she have wanted him to finish this? 

He snapped out of it to discover Khaled reaching up for the laptop, which sat atop the battered Formica dining table across the room. The injured administrator mashed the keyboard with a broken hand, and a second later a long tone signalled the software’s attempt to connect the call. 

Aydin couldn’t let that happen. 

He darted forward, lurched at Khaled. He lifted his foot and hurled it under Khaled’s chin. His head whipped back at such an angle Aydin wondered if he’d broken his neck. His head bounced forward again, his face smacked sickly against the lino floor. Aydin plunged the knife into the side of Khaled’s neck and yanked it out the front, tearing a gaping hole in the flesh from which the man’s blood sprayed out. 

Spinning round, Aydin reached out to kill the call on the laptop . . . but the dial tone had already stopped. 

He hoped – prayed – that the call hadn’t gone through, that it had simply timed out. Then he saw the all too familiar browser window open up. Just a plain black screen, the same as always. He knew on the other end of the line his face would be clearly visible. 

His face, dripping with Khaled’s blood. 

Breathing hissed through the laptop’s speakers; slow, deliberate and calm breaths. Aydin stared at the blank screen, unable to move, as though it was a black hole sucking every ounce of energy from him. 

‘Why?’ was all he could think to say. No answer. ‘Why her!’ His voice was hoarse as the well of emotion overflowed. Anger, sorrow, regret – he wasn’t sure which was in control. 

Still no answer. 

A short bleep sounded and the call disconnected, the black screen replaced by generic Microsoft wallpaper. Aydin knew exactly what that meant. 

Hurriedly he grabbed the only possessions he needed – the stash of money in a hole in the wall behind the bathroom cabinet, the pistol and his pocket multi-tool. He left the several fake passports behind. Despite their undoubted quality, he couldn’t use them now. 

Outside, he walked quickly down the street and took out his phone. He stopped to turn it on and thought about calling her again. After a few moments he stuck the phone back in his pocket and continued walking. 

He headed on past the spot where the Citroën used to be, ignoring the nagging in his mind – why hadn’t he just gone when he’d had the chance? 

For once he was at least glad he lived in such a desperate neighbourhood, and it wasn’t long before he found an old Fiat in a similar state to the recently departed Citroën. 

After checking the dark street was clear, he took out the multi-tool and used the flathead screwdriver and a bit of muscle to pop the lock and the door open. Less than a minute later he had the engine running. For a few moments he just sat there as the engine grumbled in his ear. 

This time he really didn’t have any choice. 

With a look over his shoulder, he pulled out into the night, no clear destination in mind. Only one thing was clear: he was on his own. 

 

 

Chapter 3

Rachel Cox stared out of the window of the seventh-floor apartment, gazing across the twinkling nightscape of the city. In the near distance she could make out what remained of the Al-Madina Souq, treasured buildings that had once formed part of the original ancient city that had seen continuous habitation for over eight millennia. Yet look what had become of it. Even at night the thin orange illumination was enough to highlight the destruction of the still raging civil war. On top of the monumental human loss, many treasured buildings were now nothing more than piles of sandy rubble. Cox would never cease to feel sadness to see a city she had grown to know so well look so vulnerable and decrepit and seemingly beyond repair – and not just its buildings, but its inhabitants too. 

The sound of her vibrating phone stole Cox’s attention from the window and the misery outside it. She moved over to the scratched and stained wooden side table and picked up the phone. A text message: 

White line, five minutes. 

Cox put the phone back down and went over to the crumpled sofa covered in a faded sheet, where her high-spec laptop sat. The city may be in ruins, but Cox wasn’t without budget, and if you had the resources you could still get all the mod cons in Aleppo one way or another – electronics, mobile phone signal and even Wi-Fi. Up in the safe house, operated by the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, Cox had all that and more. 

She flipped open the lid on the laptop and went through the familiar routine to initiate the white line – a voiceover IP line that was encrypted through a secure real-time transport protocol, or SRTP for short. It meant that both of the devices on either end of the conversation were encrypted, as was the line itself. The system wasn’t foolproof, nothing involving the Internet was, but it was as secure a communication channel as SIS had for transnational conversations with active agents. 

Of course, the multi-layered security on the line was to prevent sophisticated computer hackers from listening in, but did nothing to deter more classical eavesdropping techniques, which was why the otherwise plain-looking safe house was professionally soundproofed, and why Cox swept the place every day for listening devices, just to be on the safe side. 

‘Rachel Cox on the line,’ she said when the call connected after a few seconds. 

‘Cox, it’s Flannigan and Roger Miles here,’ came the crackly voice of her immediate boss after a short delay – the less than perfect sound quality a result both of the geographical distance and the heavy security measures. 

Cox did her best not to let out a groan. Henry Flannigan, the man she reported to, was a level four supervisor back at Vauxhall Cross in London – SIS headquarters. She’d worked for Flannigan for several years and the two of them had plenty of professional baggage between them. Their shared headstrong nature meant they regularly clashed, but overall she thought he was an okay guy, as long as she did as he asked (and if his arrogance and general superior attitude could be excused). Roger Miles was a level six director, the highest rank before numbers stopped and plain old extravagant titles took over, just a few small pay grades from the SIS Chief himself, right at the top of the food chain. Cox didn’t know too much about him on a personal level, just that when he got involved in matters it generally meant there was a problem. Often it felt like the problem was her. 

‘Evening,’ Cox said. ‘You’re both still in the office?’ 

She looked at her watch. It was gone eleven p.m. in Aleppo, so after nine back in London. 

‘Your request was urgent so we dealt with it urgently,’ Flannigan answered. 

Cox felt herself tense up. She could almost tell by the way he said it what the answer was going to be. 

‘Miss Cox––’ 

‘It’s still Mrs, actually,’ Cox said, cutting off Miles without thinking, that ‘single’ title sending a flurry of unwelcome thoughts through her mind. ‘Just call me Rachel. Or Cox. Whatever.’ 

‘Rachel, I’ve looked through all of the information you provided, and I’ve discussed this at length with Henry too, and I’m afraid the conclusion I’ve come to is that I have to turn down your request for Trapeze assistance at this time.’ 

Now Cox did let out her groan. ‘But sir, the evidence I––’ 

‘Well that’s the problem, Cox,’ Flannigan interrupted. ‘There really isn’t much by way of evidence. Assigning the resources of the Trapeze team is a serious and expensive step to take––’ 

‘Which is why it needs level six approval,’ Miles butted in. 

‘. . . And it’s just not clear that there would be any benefit to your work in doing so at this stage. In fact, it might jeopardise events down the line if we’ve extended our reach without good justification.’ 

Cox gritted her teeth as she bit back her retort. The way she saw it the term good justification was basically a movable feast that could be placed wherever those at the top end of the hierarchy wanted it. For months her work had seen her edging closer and closer to the identities and the truth of a group of extremists that she’d colloquially labelled the Thirteen. 

After 9/11, Cox was placed on a special investigation to track the activity of family groups of known terrorists. Every year, thousands of children were brought up in extremist jihadi households across the Middle East – it was her job to track those kids to adulthood, and do her best to prevent them from becoming the next wave of terrorists to threaten the region, and ultimately the West. What had begun as a mind-numbing exercise in basic local surveillance had transformed into something Cox felt held far-reaching significance. It was in Iraq that she’d first come across tales of a group of young boys being trained in a secret and secluded institution, and her work since had led her to believe that those tales – as tall as they often were – held real truth. 

Her boss at SIS had agreed, and had sanctioned a formal investigation with Cox’s remit to identify and track down the Thirteen and the facility they were being trained at. Although she firmly believed the notorious Aziz al-Addad was likely one of the key players behind the group, she’d not yet come close to completing her mission. For weeks now it felt as if she’d been hitting brick wall after brick wall. In fact, several months ago, even the few small leads she had dried up overnight. Despite her best efforts, she no longer had any active intelligence on where any of the Thirteen were, as though they didn’t even exist any more. To Cox that meant one thing: bad news. The graduates of destruction were likely now out in the world awaiting activation. Yet the lack of tangible evidence she had on who the Thirteen were, and where they were, meant the bigwigs at SIS were fast losing interest – and patience – in the investigation. 

Cox, on the other hand, remained unmoved in her belief that the Thirteen formed not just a potent potential weapon, but also an immediate threat to the UK and indeed the whole of Western Europe. So far she was having a hard time convincing Flannigan of that. 

‘I think you’re wrong,’ Cox said. ‘And I think the longer you delay giving me proper assistance for this investigation the greater the risk to us all.’ 

Getting access to the Trapeze team – a highly sophisticated surveillance unit operated out of the UK government’s GCHQ – would finally give her the resources she needed to help track down the Thirteen and enable the authorities to stop them. Roger Miles had already turned down Cox’s previous request some three months ago, and given Flannigan’s attitude towards her of late she was beginning to question the level of influence he had over the decision, too. Was he deliberately trying to scupper her work behind her back? But why would he do that? 

‘Can you imagine the public reaction if the Thirteen initiate an attack that could have been prevented?’ Cox added. 

‘Public reaction?’ Flannigan said. ‘Sorry, but is that a threat?’ 

‘What do you think? I’m not in this for public recognition, you must know that about me by now. But I have to stop this group before it’s too late.’ 

‘You don’t even know the Thirteen exist!’ Flannigan blasted. ‘For all we’ve seen it’s just your wild, personal theory.’ 

‘That’s ridiculous. Of course they exist, they––’ 

‘Existed, perhaps. We know very well the recruitment techniques of these jihadi outfits, including those run by the so-called Teacher. And yes, I’m certain there are many young boys who were kidnapped or otherwise forced into training under that vile man. But to suggest there’s some group of thirteen kids who sit above all that, and are about to bring the world to its knees, is just . . . baseless.’ 

‘According to you.’ 

‘According to fucking everyone except you actually!’ 

‘Okay, Henry, let’s keep this level,’ Miles said. ‘Rachel, I know you’ve put a lot of time and sacrifice into this, but the problem is I’m seeing little tangible progress––’ 

‘That’s because you’re having me operate with my hands tied behind my back!’ 

‘Enough! Let me be very clear with you. For a while now I’ve tried to see this operation from your point of view, and I’ve given you the benefit of the doubt plenty. But it really is getting to the point now where I have to decide whether continuing this work remains in the public interest.’ 

‘You have to trust me.’ 

‘I do. Which is why I’m giving you another two weeks. But if you don’t have any new evidence before then – and I mean real, solid, tangible evidence that we can act upon – then I’m shutting this operation down.’ 

Silence fell for a few seconds and Cox wondered whether they were expecting her to respond. She didn’t. What could she say? 

‘Do you understand?’ Flannigan asked. 

‘Of course,’ Cox said. 

‘Okay, good,’ Miles said. ‘Then I think we’re done for now.’ 

‘Looks like it, doesn’t it?’ Cox said, before reaching out and ending the call. 

She was fuming. Sod them both. If they wouldn’t help her she’d just have to do things her own way. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d broken protocol to prove she was right. The last time she’d been able to dismantle a small cell planning a car bomb attack at the British embassy in Cairo. For her efforts she’d been given a formal reprimand, and had her promotion to level four rejected. Yet she firmly believed her actions then were justified, as they were now. 

Cox shut the laptop lid and picked the phone back up. She saw there were two missed calls from Subhi, a local asset of hers who officially worked for the Military Intelligence Directorate of Syria, though for the last eighteen months had been passing intel to her – payback after she’d helped his mother and grandma escape the war-torn country to Egypt. 

He’d left no message – neither text nor voicemail. She was still thinking what to do, how to respond to him, when another call came through. 

‘Hi,’ she said, expecting a coded response in return, perhaps a request for them to meet somewhere to discuss whatever he’d so urgently been calling about. 

‘Rachel, have you seen the news?’ 

Cox frowned. ‘The bomb attack?’ she said. She’d heard it on the news but hadn’t paid much attention. Such an attack, although horrific, was becoming par for the course in the beleaguered city. In fact rarely did a day go by without an atrocity of some sort, committed by any one of the many sides in the war. A few hours ago, towards the end of the working day, a lone man had walked through a crowded open-air food market in the centre of the city and blown himself and over twenty other people into pieces. 

‘Check the news,’ Subhi said. ‘Then call me back.’ 

‘Wait,’ Cox said, hoping to stop him before he ended the call. He sounded harried, and she could sense his anxiousness. ‘Are you still there?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘Just tell me.’ 

Subhi let out a deep sigh. ‘She was there, Rachel. In the market when the bomb went off. I’m sorry, but she’s dead.’ 

Subhi didn’t need to say anything more than that. Cox slumped. She knew exactly whom he meant, and what it meant for her investigation. 

 

 

Chapter 4

Aydin’s first focus as he drove off in the Fiat was simply to leave Paris as quickly as he could, and get some breathing space. He initially headed south, away from where he really wanted to be. He had a phone in his pocket that his people would surely try to trace. He couldn’t keep it on him for long, but he had to at least hope that a simple subterfuge would hold the chasing pack off for a short while. 

He drove on for two hours in the clunking Fiat before he stopped at the side of the four-lane highway. He stepped from the car. There were no other vehicles in sight, everything quiet and serene compared to the inner city, and an uncomfortable contrast to the turmoil in his mind and to the chaos that would surely follow him from there. 

He dropped the phone to the ground and stomped on it until it was clear the device was smashed beyond reasonable repair. Not dismantled fully, but then he didn’t want it to be. He wanted its pieces to be found. He picked the remnants of the phone back up and flung them into the overgrown verge. No point in making things easy for them.