Origins of Conflict
Chapter One
Dads, daughters, and guns seldom mix well, so I had opted to leave my nine-millimetre comforter in the gun safe at home. This one choice, I tried to convince myself, was the source of my current unease.
In truth, I knew the real reason for my apprehension. I hadn’t seen my twenty-one-year old daughter; Meghan, for five years, and now… well, in less than an hour, we will meet, at Meg’s request and I will hug her till she bursts. Yet, tangled up in my excitement, was something else. I felt like a man lost in his own bathroom. How can something, someone so familiar, feel so alien to me? I allowed a crazy smile to form knowing no-one was watching.
I had spent the last five years trying to claw my way out of a deep well of loss. Eventually realising the futility and filling the well with work – work that takes me to even darker places where peril and plotting thrive. As a result, the country was a safer place, but I was an emptier one. Retirement couldn’t come soon enough – four more days.
With increasing regularity, I allowed my thoughts… no, forced my thoughts to stray into civilian life. To imagine a place where I could be on-call to fix a leaking tap rather than be on-call to plug a terrorist. Meghan’s contact made family life a little more within my reach, something I’m ready for, something I need.
As traffic slowed, I checked my watch again, then decided to stop checking my watch and instead, had a stern word with myself to calm the fuck down. I still had an hour to get to her – more than enough. I fumbled for my personal phone and opened my playlist. But, big clumsy hands and unfortunate timing made me answer an incoming call instead of pressing the ‘play’ icon. I didn’t say ‘hello’.
‘Sam,’ said the caller. I didn’t reply. ‘Sam. Are you there?’ the caller persisted. I recognised the voice.
The unsettled clouds of vulnerability hovering around me, swiftly dissipated as my focus returned. Six people have my personal number – this wasn’t the voice of any of those.
‘Who is this?’ I asked, to clarify my fears.
‘It’s Marwan. Marwan Badawi.’
I stayed silent. Considered ending the call. I knew the name, I knew the person. I knew I was the last person he should be calling. They’re referred to as ‘operators’ – undercover intelligence officers, deeply embedded into extremist groups for years at a time. Sometimes they don’t come out. They connect and communicate through dead-drops with their handlers. I’m no-one’s handler within the service.
‘This isn’t protocol Marwan. How did you get this number?’
‘I need to meet you. Now. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t time critical. If it wasn’t personal.’
His last statement made me sit a little more upright. ‘I’m on my way to Birmingham. Got the day off to spend time with my daughter. I can’t see you now.’ I said, trying to force his hand to give me more over the phone.
‘Well I can see you. I’m three vehicles behind you. Have been since you left your flat. White Peugeot.’
‘Fuck’, I thought as I checked the rear-view mirror. I should be the last person to fall for a surveillance tail. ‘There’s a layby half a mile ahead. I’ll pull up there, I can give you fifteen minutes.’ I said, as duty and intrigue repeatedly pounded my shoulder.
‘I won’t need five minutes.’ Marwan replied, then ended the call.