Read State Of Emergency: (Tom Buckingham Thriller 3) for Free Online

listening, monitoring the man’s every move, two mysteries had come at once.
    He cast his eye over the desk, as he always did when their meetings ended, in case there was anything useful Rolt had left behind, but he had cleared it. The drawers, as usual, had been locked. But on a small table tucked behind the door, there was an oblong wooden case he hadn’t seen before. It was inlaid with intricately carved veneers depicting highly stylized crossed swords. The hinges were equally ornate and looked gold-plated, or even solid gold. He turned it over – Heron , it said on the bottom – and carefully unlatched the lid.
    Lying on a bed of quilted purple silk was a sabre, the scabbard leather-covered, with gold markings. He lifted it from the box and drew out the blade. He recognized it, a Tartar Ordynka, not an original but newly forged, high-carbon steel with what looked like a solid gold guard and pommel, the wooden grip covered with deep brown hide. It was impressive yet hideously kitsch. A dedication was engraved on the blade: To Vernon, for the next battle. Your friend, Oleg.

6
    09.30 (07.30 GMT)
Aleppo, northern Syria
    The temperature hovered around zero but Jamal could feel the sweat trickling down from his armpits all the way to his waistband. He gripped the strap of his AK with both hands and tried to keep his breathing steady by counting: in – one, two, three, four; out – one, two, three, four. Something he remembered from choir practice in Croydon, but that seemed a very long time ago, and a very long way from where he was now.
    The wind whipped his face and made his eyes water. Eight of them were crammed into the back of the Toyota Hilux, in two rows of four, facing each other. Another three pick-ups followed in the convoy as it bounced through the shattered suburb towards the square where the executions were to take place, lurching and snaking across the roads in a vain attempt to avoid the numerous craters. None of his ‘brothers’ exchanged eye contact, which was just as well for Jamal. They had been told nothing, just to grab their weapons and some rations, get into the trucks and off. But they all knew. The whole district knew. And soon, if Jamal didn’t screw up, so would the whole world.
    Dearest sister Adila , he had texted, God willing I will see you very soon. I have found a way. It was a risk but telling her had made it more real. He was going home. All he had to do was get through the next three hours, keep his side of the bargain. And if he was found out? He shut the thought out of his mind.
    He looked ahead at the pancaked buildings sliding by on either side, as if trampled by an angry, vengeful god. The place was a wasteland now, and all for what? Stumps of trees along what had once been an elegant boulevard in an upmarket suburb, the boughs either blasted away or chopped down for fuel in the perishing winter. Jamal had thought England was bad in winter but he had never experienced it without gas or electricity.
    The residents with any sense had left long ago, for Jordan, Lebanon or Turkey. Some lucky ones had gone to America and Canada. Those who had stayed were made fools of by their courage. He saw them on the sidewalks, a hint of their past affluence shown by a leather coat or some tattered high-end trainers. But mostly they had now become indistinguishable from those who had rushed in to occupy the vacant properties of others who had fled, families from the villages convinced that Paradise on earth awaited them in the empty suburbs cleansed of corruption. What would his father have done? Would he have stayed or gone? Jamal didn’t know, because he barely knew his father.
    The pick-up slowed and squeezed through the gap between a bus on its side and a van with crude armour cladding, wreckage from one of last night’s skirmishes. A crowd was picking through the spilled cargo from the bus’s roof rack – the cases and bags of some group trying to flee the city. A child let out a whoop