The Alex King Series A BATEMAN (summer reading list txt) 📖

the soup. She was annoyed, there hadn’t been a spoon or anything else that would be useful in her escape.

17

 

Dover, England

“It doesn’t get any better than this. A Paki smuggling an assault rifle? Now, let’s start again. Where did you get it?”

Nothing.

“For the tape, the suspect refuses to answer.”

“For the tape, the officer just called a British citizen a Paki.”

“Smart-arse, are we?”

“One of us is smart. I think the other is just an arse.”

“What were you planning to do with it?” the second anti-terrorism officer asked. “An ISIS attack on UK soil? What, another random act of slaughter? “

Nothing.

“Again, for the tape, no answer. Look, we’ve got you for nine more days, sunshine. You’ve had four, you’ll break sooner or later,” the lead officer paused. “And it will be sooner, mark my words.”

“Cakewalk.”

“What?” the lead officer asked.

Rashid smiled. “Fairground game. Like musical chairs. It means this is a piece of piss.”

The junior officer slammed his hand down on the table. “This is an interrogation!”

“Interview, shit head. And an easy one at that.”

The lead officer turned over Border Force arrest notes in front of him. He looked at Rashid, shook his head. “What is it? ISIS? Al Qaeda?”

Nothing. Rashid stared impassively ahead.

“You were caught smuggling an assault rifle through the port of Dover.”

“Nah, not me, mate. Someone must have planted it. Strapped it to my car’s exhaust and were going to follow me, pick it up when they had the opportunity.”

“So, you say,” the junior officer commented.

“Are my prints on it? I don’t think so.” Rashid smiled. He had stripped the weapon, smeared it with a sheen of bleach and left it for an hour before oiling it and wiping it clean. The bleach would destroy any of his DNA. He had used gloves, wrapped it in bin sacks, strapped it underneath using duct-tape. He had dumped the twenty spare rounds for the weapon – no point carrying anything further incriminating. The ammo had come from Hereford but could not be traced to his absence. One or two rounds at a time over the years, pocketed after operations or drills and kept in his personal stash, along with a pistol and some ammo he had relieved a dead Taliban fighter of in Afghanistan – a man in Rashid’s line of work could never be too careful and he knew he may need the weapon one day.

“You’re a smug one.”

“What? For a Paki?”

“I didn’t mean that,” said the lead officer.

“Charge me or let me go. You have nothing more than my unwitting possession of a firearm.”

“You’re AWOL. You’re a serving soldier in the Parachute Regiment.”

Rashid knew where their information would lead and where it would end. His military service history would terminate at the unit he served in before his time in the SAS. He was never under any obligation to correct them. “I was on holiday,” he replied.

“That explains the gun,” said the junior officer sarcastically.

“Does it?” Rashid shrugged. “I was travelling to Britain, not away from it.”

“Maybe you’re a traitor then? Maybe you’re in the army and all the time, you’re an extremist planning an attack?”

“So, I’d be bringing in a gun, why?”

“To harm British citizens!” The officer interjected. “Unless it has something to do with Russia’s state visit in a couple of months. Is that it? You’re not happy with their support of the Assad regime in Syria, want to help fellow Muslims?”

Rashid laughed. “Fellow Muslims would also be Assad and his soldiers. You have a great imagination there, you’re obviously wasted as a policeman.”

The officer slammed his fist down on the table, making his colleague flinch, but merely making Rashid smile. “Tell us about the gun!”

“What sort of gun was it?” Rashid asked.

“An assault rifle.”

“Doesn’t narrow the field much.”

The lead officer looked at the notes, took out a photograph. “An M4.”

“Nice,” Rashid said. “Never used one. The Paras use the SA80. And if I were a terrorist, with access to an entire warehouse full of SA80 rifles, then I wouldn’t have to travel to France to buy one. I’d smuggle one out of barracks.”

“So, you’re a hard para, are you?” the junior officer asked. “You think you’ll breeze through this?”

“What, exactly?”

“This process of questioning.”

Rashid looked at his watch. He had not been charged yet, but under the prevention of terrorism act, they had fourteen days before they had to charge or release him. But they also had to allow him six hours uninterrupted sleep and provide him with three meals, four drinks and as many toilet breaks as he required. A cakewalk to an SAS officer who had successfully   infiltrated ISIS in Syria and lived amongst them as a spy for months.

There was a knock at the door and a detective walked in.

The lead officer looked around, then turned to the recorder and said, “Interview suspended at sixteen-forty-two, DI Blakemore has just entered the room…”

The detective whispered into the lead officer’s ear. The lead officer was a DCI and he looked to be ten-years older than the DI. The DCI stood up, glanced at Rashid and ushered the DI to the corner of the room, where they talked animatedly in low voices. Both men left the room and a uniformed officer stepped inside to keep the two to one ratio.

The junior officer smirked. “Sounds like they’ve got something significant. Say a little prayer to Allah, you’re fucked, mate.”

Rashid tapped the top of the recorder. “You aren’t allowed to talk to me without the tape running,” he said. “That’s a shame, because it won’t pick me up saying how much I enjoyed giving it to your old lady.”

The detective laughed. “I’m not married, dickhead.”

Rashid leaned forward and smiled. “I know. I was talking about your