Last Light Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Monday

  CHAPTER 1 - 8.05 a.m. GMT BBC, Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 2 - 8.19 a.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 3 - 8.31 a.m. GMT University of East Anglia (UEA), Norwich

  CHAPTER 4 - 11.44 a.m. local time Pump station IT-1B

  CHAPTER 5 - 8.45 a.m. GMT

  CHAPTER 6 - 12.35 p.m. GMT Manchester

  CHAPTER 7 - 3.37 p.m. local time Desert, Salah Ad Din Region, Iraq

  CHAPTER 8 - 12.38 p.m. GMT UEA, Norwich

  CHAPTER 9 - 6.42 p.m. local time Road leading to Al-Bayji, Iraq

  CHAPTER 10 - 9.21 p.m. local time Road leading to Al-Bayji, Iraq

  CHAPTER 11 - 8.33 p.m. GMT UEA, Norwich

  CHAPTER 12 - 11.55 p.m. GMT Whitehall, London

  Tuesday

  CHAPTER 13 - 5 a.m. local time Road leading to Al-Bayji, Iraq

  CHAPTER 14 - 6.57 a.m. local time Al-Bayji, Iraq

  CHAPTER 15 - 7.21 a.m. local time Al-Bayji, Iraq

  CHAPTER 16 - 8 a.m. GMT Manchester

  CHAPTER 17 - 11 a.m. local time Al-Bayji, Iraq

  CHAPTER 18 - 11.18 a.m. local time Al-Bayji, Iraq

  CHAPTER 19 - 8.21 a.m. GMT UEA, Norwich

  CHAPTER 20 - 11.22 a.m. local time Al-Bayji, Iraq

  CHAPTER 21 - 8.55 a.m. UEA, Norwich

  CHAPTER 22 - 8.57 a.m. GMT UEA, Norwich

  CHAPTER 23 - 9.41 a.m. GMT Manchester

  CHAPTER 24 - 9.45 a.m. GMT UEA, Norwich

  CHAPTER 25 - 11.37 a.m. GMT North Finchley, London

  CHAPTER 26 - 12.30 p.m. GMT Whitehall, London

  CHAPTER 27 - 3.42 p.m. local time Al-Bayji, Iraq

  CHAPTER 28 - 12.57 p.m. GMT Hammersmith, London

  CHAPTER 29 - 1.30 p.m. GMT Whitehall, London

  CHAPTER 30 - 1.37 p.m. GMT Whitehall, London

  CHAPTER 31 - 2.15 p.m. GMT Hammersmith, London

  CHAPTER 32 - 2.45 p.m. GMT M6 motorway, north of Birmingham

  CHAPTER 33 - 10 p.m. local time Al-Bayji, Iraq

  CHAPTER 34 - 7.23 p.m. GMT Between Manchester and Birmingham

  CHAPTER 35 - 10.24 p.m. local time Al-Bayji, Iraq

  CHAPTER 36 - 7.40 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 37 - 10.41 p.m. local time Al-Bayji, Iraq

  CHAPTER 38 - 7.46 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 39 - 10.50 p.m. local time Al-Bayji, Iraq

  CHAPTER 40 - 7.52 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 41 - 7.53 p.m. GMT Between Manchester and Birmingham

  CHAPTER 42 - 10.53 p.m. local time Al-Bayji, Iraq

  Wednesday

  CHAPTER 43 - 5 a.m. GMT Between Manchester and Birmingham

  CHAPTER 44 - 11.31 a.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 45 - 12.15 p.m. GMT Beauford Service Station

  CHAPTER 46 - 2 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 47 - 2.01 p.m. GMT Hammersmith, London

  CHAPTER 48 - 2.05 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 49 - 5 p.m. local time Northern Iraq

  CHAPTER 50 - 2.30 p.m. GMT Cabinet Office Briefing Room A (COBRA), London

  CHAPTER 51 - 3 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 52 - 3.47 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 53 - 8.51 p.m. GMT South of London

  CHAPTER 54 - 11.57 p.m. local time Northern Iraq

  CHAPTER 55 - 10.03 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  Thursday

  CHAPTER 56 - 7 a.m. local time The Turkey/Iraq border

  CHAPTER 57 - 10 a.m. GMT Beauford Service Station

  CHAPTER 58 - 9.12 p.m. local time Southern Turkey

  CHAPTER 59 - 6 p.m. GMT Beauford Service Station

  CHAPTER 60 - 6.11 p.m. GMT Beauford Service Station

  CHAPTER 61 - 6.15 p.m. GMT Beauford Service Station

  CHAPTER 62 - 9.51 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 63 - 11.43 p.m. GMT Beauford Service Station

  CHAPTER 64 - 11.46 p.m. GMT Beauford Service Station

  Friday

  CHAPTER 65 - 3 a.m. local time Southern Turkey

  CHAPTER 66 - 3.25 a.m. local time Southern Turkey

  CHAPTER 67 - 4 a.m. local time Southern Turkey

  CHAPTER 68 - 4.05 a.m. GMT

  CHAPTER 69 - 6.29 a.m. GMT

  CHAPTER 70 - 12.31 a.m. EST New York, USA

  CHAPTER 71 - 7.31 a.m. GMT Guildford

  CHAPTER 72 - 7.51 a.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 73 - 4.23 p.m. GMT Outskirts of London

  CHAPTER 74 - 10.27 p.m. local time Over Europe

  CHAPTER 75 - 10.05 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 76 - 10.09 p.m. GMT London

  CHAPTER 77 - 10.11 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 78 - 11.59 p.m. GMT Guildford

  Saturday

  CHAPTER 79 - 4.21 a.m. GMT Heathrow, London

  CHAPTER 80 - 10.03 a.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 81 - 11.35 a.m. GMT Heathrow, London

  CHAPTER 82 - 2.32 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 83 - 9 p.m. GMT Cabinet Office Briefing Room A (COBRA), London

  CHAPTER 84 - 9.15 p.m. GMT London

  CHAPTER 85 - 9.51 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 86 - 10.25 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 87 - 11.36 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 88 - 11.54 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  Sunday

  CHAPTER 89 - 12.01 a.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  CHAPTER 90 - 12.07 a.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Jenny twisted in her seat and studied the pavilion anxiously, half-expecting a swarm of people to suddenly emerge from it and charge them down, hell-bent on pulling them out of the car and ripping their throats out.

  My God, doesn’t this feel just like that . . . Like one of those crazy zombie movies?

  This whole situation was like some post-apocalyptic scenario; the glimmering firelight from the bonfire, the debris and detritus strewn across the tarmac, the flickering torchlight and the frantically scrabbling crowd inside the building, the noise, the chaos.

  Paul drove across the car-park towards the exit leading on to the slip-road that led out to the motorway and headed south once more.

  She watched the service station in the wing mirror until it disappeared from view.

  My God, this is how it is after only four days.

  Alex Scarrow lives a nomadic existence with his wife Frances and his son Jacob, their current home being Norwich. He spent the first 10 years out of college in the music industry chasing record deals and the next 12 years in the computer games business. His previous novel - A Thousand Suns - is also available from Orion paperbacks. Visit his website at www.scarrow.co.uk.

  By Alex Scarrow

  A Thousand Suns

  Last Light

  Last Light

  ALEX SCARROW

  Orion

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

  AN ORION EBOOK

  First published in Great Britain in 2007 by Orion

  This ebook first published in 2010 by Orion Books

  Copyright © Alex Scarrow 2007

  The moral right of Alex Scarrow to be identified as the author

  of this work has been asserted in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior p
ermission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious,

  and any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library.

  eISBN : 978 1 4091 2454 2

  This ebook produced by Jouve, France

  The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

  Orion House

  5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane

  London WC2H 9EA

  An Hachette UK Company

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

  For my son Jacob, smart, imaginative . . . and maybe one day, competition. I love you man.

  For Jacob’s eyes only:

  VQ BMJJN RJXB GR ZWB BDWCB RNBADC

  FADNSRMPR

  OQXL CGN JRMP NO RWZTDUZWC

  Acknowledgements

  There’s a small list of people that deserve a mention for the help they gave me in putting together this book. There’s no particular order in which I want to do this, so I’ll dive right on in.

  Robin Carter for extensive proofing and valuable comments. Yes . . . his name does appear in the book as you, dear reader, will soon see. Obviously for legal reasons, I need to say something about this being utterly coincidental and any resemblance . . . blah, blah, blah. A damn good character name that. I also want to thank Andy Canty for his proof reading and comments as well, and again . . . that’s another Christian name that has turned up in the book! Funny old world.

  My thanks also go out to someone I can’t name for security reasons, who gave me some useful ‘on the streets’ details of life in Iraq. He knows I’m thanking him anonymously like this, and that’s how it needs to be.

  I want to thank my wife, Frances, for reading the first draft. I must extend my apologies for making her cry with the second draft. Her comments were many and varied; you’ll never truly know how valuable her feedback is. Dad, Tony, and brother, Simon, thanks you two for your encouragement. Additional thanks go to Jerry Stutters for some background military details.

  Finally, a thank you to my editor, Jon Wood, and agent, Eugenie Furniss, for working with me on this and helping me to finesse the story and take it up to the next level.

  December 1999

  Room 204

  She stared at the door of room 204.

  Like every other door along the corridor, it was a rich dark wood with the room number and handle in gold plate.

  A bloody expensive hotel, that’s what Dad had said.

  ‘Enjoy it guys . . . we’ll probably never stay in another as expensive as this one.’

  He’d made a joke to Mum about sneaking out the bathrobes and selling them at some place called ‘eee-bay’.

  The corridor was silent; leaving the lift her footsteps were hushed by the thick carpet - not even the muted noise of quiet conversations or a TV on low, coming from any of the rooms, the doors were so thick and heavy.

  Now it was decision time . . . and she knew this would happen on the way up from the foyer, where she’d left Mum waiting impatiently. She knew she was going to forget the number in the lift going up - way too busy thinking about what she was going to buy with the spends Dad had given her for the trip.

  204? It is 204 isn’t it? . . . Or was it 202?

  Leona wondered if Dad’s business was all done now, or if he was still waiting for his mystery visitor. He’d been a little nervous and jumpy when he had shoo-ed her and Mum out to go window-shopping; snappy, tense, just like Leona remembered being on her first day at big school earlier that year.

  Nervous - exactly like that.

  Mum was pretty sure he must have finished his meeting by now. Since he’d bundled them out a couple of hours ago, they’d both visited a big department store glistening with Christmas displays, and grabbed a coffee and a Danish in a bustling coffee shop that overlooked the busy streets surrounding Times Square. And Dad had assured them his very important business meeting would be over quickly.

  Leona hoped maybe he would be able to join them; to come back down with her now that the ‘work’ part of their family trip to New York was over. It wasn’t the same without him. But either way she really needed to pick up that beanie-bag of hers with all her spends in. There were just too many things she’d seen in the last two hours that she desperately needed to buy.

  She decided it was room 204 they were staying in, not 202, after all. She placed her hand on the old-fashioned brass door-handle. She noticed a flicker of light through the keyhole beneath.

  Dad nervously pacing the room? Or maybe his meeting had started already? She was about to hunker down and spy through the keyhole to be sure she wasn’t going to interrupt his business, but her grasp of the door-handle was heavy enough that, with a click, the latch disengaged and the door swung in heavily.

  The three men stared at her, their conversation frozen in time. They stood at the end of the emperor-sized bed; three men, old men, very smart men, looking down at her. She noticed a fourth, younger, dark-haired man standing to one side, a deferential distance away from the others. He broke the moment, starting to move swiftly towards her, his hand reaching into a pocket.

  ‘No,’ whispered one of the three. That stopped him dead, although his hand remained inside his smart jacket.

  The one who spoke turned towards Leona, stooping down slightly. ‘I think you’ve come into the wrong room my dear,’ he said, his voice pleasant and disarming, like a doting grandfather.

  He smiled warmly at her, ‘I think your room is next door.’

  ‘I’m really s-sorry,’ Leona replied awkwardly, taking a contrite step backwards out of the room and into the corridor, pulling the door after her.

  The door closed gently with a click of the latch and there was a long silence before one of the two older men who had remained silent, turned to the others.

  ‘She saw all three of us. We were seen together.’

  A pause.

  ‘Is this going to pose a problem?’

  ‘Don’t worry. She doesn’t know who we are. She doesn’t know why we’re here.’

  ‘Our anonymity is everything . . . as it has always been, since—’

  ‘She’s a little girl. A few years from now, the only thing she’ll remember will be whatever she got for Christmas and the Millennium Eve fireworks. Not three boring old men in a room.’

  The Present

  Monday

  CHAPTER 1

  8.05 a.m. GMT BBC, Shepherd’s Bush, London

  ‘He’s lost some weight,’ said Cameron.

  ‘Really? I think he’s put some on.’

  Cameron studied the monitors lined above the mixing desk. On them, Sean Tillman and his co-anchor, Nanette Madeley, were exchanging a few improvised witticisms between items.

  ‘No, you can see it in Sean’s face. It’s less jowly.’

  His assistant producer, Sally, wrinkled her nose in judgement. ‘I don’t think he’s lost any weight. Do you suppose he’s feeling threatened by the younger news team over on Sky?’

  ‘Christ, yes. Can’t blame him though,’ Cameron replied. ‘Let’s be honest, if you’ve just woken up and you’re channel-hopping first thing in the morning, whose face would you want yapping the news at you? Flabby old Sean Tillman, or someone who looks like Robbie Williams’ younger, sexier brother?’

  ‘Hmmm, tough call,’ said Sally casting a casual glance across to their news-feed screen.

  The domestic feed, a horizontal news text bar, was scrolling some dull story on a farmers’ dispute in Norfolk whilst the Reuters’ feed was streaming results on an election in Indonesia. Pretty uninteresting stuff all round.

  Cameron cast a glance up at the monitor to see Sean Tillman checking himself in a small hand-mirror. ‘I know Sean’s also worried about th
e chin factor.’

  Sally snorted with amusement.

  ‘Yuh, that’s what he calls it. He’s really pissed off about the studio floor being re-covered last month with a lighter linoleum. I heard him having a good old moan to Karl in make-up that the floor’s deflecting the studio lights. That he’s getting lit from underneath.’

  Cameron leant forward and studied the monitor, watching both Sean and Nanette preparing for the hand-back from Diarmid. ‘He’s got a point though. He’s really coming off worse there. Nanette actually looks better, more radiant since they changed the—’

  ‘Cameron,’ muttered Sally.

  ‘—floor covering. Poor Sean though. It sort of makes the flesh under his chin glow. And there is a fair bit of it wobbling away under his—’

  ‘Cam!’ Sally said, this time more insistently.

  ‘What?’

  She pointed to the Reuters’ news feed.

  As the words scrolled slowly across the display bar, he read them one after the other, gradually making sense of the text he was reading.

  ‘Shit!’ he said, turning to Sally. ‘We’re going to need a whole bunch of graphics. This is going to hog the news all day.’

  ‘It’s not that big a deal, is it?’

  ‘You’re kidding me, right?’

  Sally shrugged. ‘Another bomb. I mean we get a dozen of those every day in Ira—?’

  ‘But it’s not Iraq, is it?’ Cameron snapped at her. She flinched at the tone of his voice, and despite the sensation of growing urgency and the first prickling of a migraine, he felt she deserved a word or two more from him. ‘Trust me, this story’s going to grow very quickly, and we don’t want to be left chasing it. Let’s get ahead of the game and get all the assets we’re going to need. Okay?’