State Of Emergency: (Tom Buckingham Thriller 3) by Andy McNab Read Free Book Online Page A

before she became a liability.
    ‘Look, he’s about to inherit a whole new team in the Home Office. When he gets stuck into the job he’ll probably forget all about you and the heat will be off.’ Tom didn’t believe for a second it would be that simple. In the last couple of weeks he had observed Rolt paying her more and more attention. He wasn’t about to let her just melt away, not a man like him who was used to getting what he wanted. But Tom wasn’t about to add to her woes by pointing that out.
    ‘And with a bit of luck you can get on with your life.’ She reached up and stroked one of his lapels. He squeezed her hand and took a step towards the door. She gave him a despairing look. ‘I’m sorry I fucked up.’
    ‘There is one more thing you can do. The sabre – there’s no manufacturer’s mark on the thing itself, but the name on the box is “Heron”. Find out what that is and maybe it’ll lead us to who sent it.’

8
    10.30 local time
Aleppo
    The sun had reached its mid-morning point, a weak winter sun that shone a cold, hard light on the proceedings. In front of the shattered remains of their school the girls were lined up, eighteen of them, hands bound behind them, either squatting or kneeling amid the rubble, covered from head to foot in black burkas. From a distance they resembled giant crows. The building had been destroyed months ago, the teachers all executed. But some of the girls had been discovered meeting in secret to study. Now it was their turn.
    At least he couldn’t see their faces yet. Let me not see their faces, dear God . But he knew he would have to soon. Abukhan, the commander, strode up and down in front of the girls, machete in hand, the skirt of his long black robe flapping in the wind. This was not by a long way the first beheading Jamal had been ordered to attend. Abukhan had required it as part of their training, a rite of passage to harden them until it became routine instead of extreme. He had taught them to fight with machetes, their training filmed for recruitment videos. The flashing blades were supposed to look more physical and appealing, even if day-to-day combat was with AKs and RPGs. When it was played back to them Jamal had been shocked to see himself in action, wielding the blade, shrieking and roaring as they were urged to do. That was the first time he realized, This is not me.
    In spite of that, he had done well, the best of the British boys. Every new boy was made to carry out a beheading. They had all had to watch as poor Ziad, one of the four-strong Croydon crew Jamal had travelled with, tears streaming down his face, bore down on the neck of a shackled deserter, the knife shaking violently in his hand as Abukhan barked orders. Jamal had imagined it was done with a heavy machete, one blow and over, like in a movie. Quick, much like chopping wood. It was nothing like that. The blade was long and serrated, like a kitchen knife, and the process dreadful and unending. First the parting of the flesh, then sawing through gristle, then finding the place between the vertebrae – laborious work for the uninitiated – the blood oozing at first, then spouting in an arc as the carotid artery was severed. There was so much of it that poor Ziad had been drenched in it from the waist up.
    Without moving his head Jamal glanced left, observing his comrades, in their identical Multicam parkas, their gaze dutifully fixed straight ahead, dead eyes that had witnessed several lifetimes’ worth of terror in five short months. Knowing what was coming should have helped them prepare, but this was different. This was on a scale they hadn’t seen before, and never before done to girls who might have been the same age as his own dear sister Adila, to be slain by their fathers.
    He touched the space above his left ear and felt the lens, no bigger than the one in a phone camera, and noticed the cable to the recorder tense slightly under his headgear as he turned slowly towards the