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

his hand on Jamal’s shoulder, then swung his leg over the bike and started it up. ‘Jump on. No time to waste.’
    Hakim tore out of the alleyway, across a courtyard, down a narrow path between a pile of rubble and a high wall, then out onto an empty street and headed east.
    ‘You’re going the wrong way!’ Jamal shouted in his ear, above the wind and the rasp of the engine. Hakim swerved between donkey carts, bicycles and a few battered cars that were slowly making their way down the cratered road.
    Hakim took a sudden left and yelled over his shoulder, ‘It’s a detour. There are convoys on the main road west. We’ll go north first. Don’t worry, just hold on.’
    Jamal decided that he must know what he was doing and let him be. He had burned his bridges with the fighters; he would show the world the truth about the atrocities being committed in the name of Allah. If it got out that he had shot the video, people at home might come after him. He would have to take precautions. His family would help – if he could make them understand. He had missed them more than he could have imagined. He decided to focus on them, to think of nothing but his beloved sister. He was going home to her.

12
    10.30
10 Downing Street
    ‘“Selective patriation ”? What in God’s name does that mean?’ The prime minister looked from one to the other until his gaze settled on Derek Farmer. ‘Is that even a word ?’
    ‘If it wasn’t before, it is now, Geoff,’ said Farmer.
    As the PM’s spin doctor, he had some clout where this sort of thing was concerned, even if the minutiae of policy bored the pants off him. He glanced round the room. No one was looking at the PM.
    ‘Well, thank you very much for that, Derek.’ The PM gave him a reproachful look and tossed the briefing papers in the direction of the coffee-table, but they missed and slid into a heap on the floor. Giles Barker, his strategy chief, scrambled to gather them up and returned to his perch on the corner of the sofa beside Farmer, who was occupying most of it, reclining on a mound of all the cushions, his short fat legs splayed. If no one else in the room was feeling triumphant, he was. He had been an early champion of the ‘Get Rolt Aboard’ campaign. It wasn’t that he cared much about the man’s politics. Rather, he could see that without him they’d be toast. And, like the rest of them, he was now having to deal with the reality of what they had done.
    The others in the room ranged from doubters to downright refuseniks. Farmer had sat through Giles’s vociferous denunciations of Rolt as a neo-Nazi until he realized the PM had come around to the idea and grudgingly fallen into line. So much for strategy. Farmer chuckled inwardly.
    Adam Mowbray, from the Home Office Policy Unit, was putting a brave face on the fact that in a few hours he would be answering to a home secretary with no previous political experience whatsoever. He had confided to Farmer that Rolt was bound to soften his rhetoric once he was in office and would soon be looking to him, his director of policy, for guidance. Meanwhile he would do his best to make friends with his new boss.
    As for the PM, away from the cameras now, Farmer had never known a politician look so defeated in his hour of victory. But what they all knew in their hearts was that this wasn’t their victory: it was Rolt’s.
    Someone had to fill the silence. Farmer was fucked if it was his job to do so. Mowbray plunged first. ‘Rolt thinks it’s pitched just right – tough but intuitive. “Selective” suggests that it is a considered measure, rather than being a diktat . As for “patriation”, well, it has a certain gravitas. We should start with the known suspects, those who by and large everyone agrees are a menace to society, give them the choice of serving their term or “patriation” to whichever Muslim country signs up to our aid package.’
    Farmer nodded approvingly. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Mowbray