He paused.
“Today is all about payback. No more. No less. We are going to get what we deserve, and because the British army wouldn’t give it to us and the British government forgot about us, we’re going to take it for ourselves.”
“Colonel. Sir!” Khyber pointed at one of the TV screens.
Alex looked. There had been some sort of accident. Two cars had collided with each other. It was difficult to see exactly what had happened: the image was fuzzy and in black and white. But a bottleneck had already built up. The cars were at different angles to each other. None of them was moving.
Sykes nodded. “We called this Operation London Down,” he said. “And as you can see, it’s started. So let’s get out there and do it!”
4
EMERGENCY SERVICES
IT HAD BEGUN NEAR Blackfriars Bridge.
Later on, the newspapers would identify the first victim as Frank Smith, a black cabdriver. He had started work at six o’clock and had continued until half past eight, when he stopped for a break. He went into a Starbucks that happened to be next to a tube station, and when he came out, he noticed a couple of young men giving away samples of some sort of chocolate bar. He’d taken one without even thinking about it and had eaten it with his coffee.
Just after ten o’clock, he had been approaching the bridge when it hit him. First, there seemed to be too much saliva in his mouth. He couldn’t understand it. He had a pet dog back home, a bulldog, and he had often seen it dribbling when food was about to be served. Now he was doing the same! At the same time, he realized there was something wrong with his eyes. They were hurting and his vision was going in and out of focus. Frank should have stopped driving then and there, but he decided to keep going. He was sure that whatever was wrong with him would pass in a minute—and if it didn’t, he could always pull in at St. Thomas’s Hospital on the other side of the river. He could feel his heart beating. It was pounding inside his chest as if it was trying to break out. Ahead of him, the lights changed. Thinking about the hospital, he pressed down on the accelerator.
He didn’t even make it onto the bridge. In pain, frightened, and out of control, Frank went the wrong way around a traffic circle and didn’t even try to stop himself as he smashed headfirst into another car. Neither he nor the other driver was badly hurt, but almost at once a traffic jam built up around them. As it happened, there were two policewomen on foot patrol nearby. They had seen the accident and came running, but before they had reached the scene, one of them clutched her stomach and fell to her knees. On the other side of the road, a newspaper seller collapsed on the sidewalk in front of his kiosk. The wind snatched a newspaper out of his hand, separated it, and blew the pages across the cars that were already backing up all the way to St. Paul’s.
The same sort of scene was being repeated all over the city. The free samples had been distributed all around the West End, the City, and the Docklands, and there were hundreds of people who hadn’t even waited to get to work before they had tucked in. The sickness, when it came, was sudden and violent. It was like being punched in the stomach. One after another, they found themselves doubling up in pain: secretaries, shop assistants, cleaners, office workers, security guards, construction workers, traffic wardens, police officers . . . even the poor homeless people who had spent the night out on the street and who had thought they were lucky enough to get something for nothing. Soon the streets were filled with people staggering blindly, throwing up, scrambling for their phones and desperately calling the emergency services.
It got worse. Tube trains had come to a halt as the drivers crawled out onto the platforms and waited for help to arrive. Many of the paramedics were themselves out of action. In the hospitals, nurses and doctors staggered into each other, helpless and frightened, more aware than anyone that something terrible had happened, that it was impossible for so many people in the city to fall ill at one time. The ambulances were going nowhere. Half the streets were blocked. Many of the drivers were out of action. Cars were colliding with each other. Smoke was rising in a cloud over Piccadilly: a van had crashed into a shop and burst into flames. Less than a mile away, a semi had swerved into the side of Waterloo Bridge and was hanging, suspended over the Thames.
Although the public knows very little about the exact machinery, there are a number of rules, or “protocols,” in place in case London is hit by a terrorist attack. The police, the intelligence services, the army, the fire brigade, and many other organizations have secretly planned exactly what to do. Less than twenty minutes after Frank Smith fell ill, the prime minister, the home secretary, and a dozen other politicians and civil servants were being rushed to a secure room in Whitehall for an emergency meeting. Soldiers armed with sniper rifles and machine guns were taking up positions at strategic points around the capital. And the BBC was already transmitting a message that had been recorded a long time ago—just in case it was ever needed.
“This is a terrorist alert. Do not panic. If you are driving, stop your car and wait for assistance. Police and medical authorities will be with you shortly. If you are at home, do not leave the house. News will be broadcast as soon as it is available. The government is aware of the situation and is doing everything in its power to make the city safe.”
But people were panicking. Rumors were spreading so fast that even the news channels were unable to keep up. London had been the victim of a dirty bomb. Someone had poisoned the water supply. There had been an attack with chemical weapons. Piccadilly had turned radioactive. Nobody remembered the little bar of chocolate they’d eaten an hour ago—or if they did, they failed to put two and two together. Everywhere now there were people writhing on the ground, crying out for help. Huge lines had built up outside hospitals and pharmacies. There were cars everywhere—on the roads and on the sidewalks—many of them empty. Cell phones weren’t working and that only added to the sense of fear. So many people had tried to make calls that the entire network had reached capacity.
The enemy was invisible. That was the worst of it. London was under attack, but it was impossible to say by whom. Nobody knew who had started it. Worse still, they didn’t know if they might be next.
Alex Rider was able to glimpse some of this, sitting in the back of the ambulance as it pulled away from the meat market. But it was the sounds all around him that told him more. Helicopters buzzed overhead. Sirens screamed. Car horns blasted uselessly. It was obvious that London was in the grip of something it had never seen before, and their progress was slow, with countless stops and starts.
The six of them had climbed into the vehicle, all dressed as paramedics. Charlie was once again driving. Sykes was next to him. It was interesting that neither of them had bothered with a facial disguise. The other three were in the back with Alex. The man named Danny was short and very muscular, smoking a cigarette. He had a tattoo, a broken heart, on the side of his neck. Gareth was black, watchful, a little older than the others. Khyber was next to him. Alex was terrified that one of them would address him. So far nobody had given him so much as a second glance, but his voice would be certain to give him away. Fortunately, nobody seemed inclined to talk.
He looked out the back window and saw a woman kneeling beside a baby carriage, holding on to it with one hand. A chef in a white hat and apron lay sprawled outside his restaurant. Many of the roads seemed to be blocked. A fire engine, with its complete crew, had come to a halt at a crossroads. A motorcyclist lay, unmoving, trapped beneath his own bike. He could imagine these scenes repeated all over the city and could only stare in silent horror. And to think that only an hour ago he had been on the way to the dentist!
Colonel Sykes had created the perfect conditions for any crime he chose to commit. London had come to a standstill. The police were going to be too sick or too busy to do anything. He and his men could choose any bank or museum and just walk in. There were millions of pounds’ worth of paintings waiting to be lifted off the
walls at the National Gallery. Or how about the gold bullion kept in the Bank of England? Alex knew that none of these was their target. In fact, they wouldn’t be driving far. The meat market was barely half a mile from the Old Bailey—presumably that was why they had chosen it as their base of operations. Sir Frederick Meadows had to be behind this. Get him out of prison and out of the country and the prize would add up to more than a hundred million pounds, more than enough for all of them.
The ambulance passed St. Bartholemew’s Hospital, with hundreds of frightened people crowding around the main doors. Next, it turned onto Newgate Street. St. Paul’s Cathedral was just behind them. There were more crowds on the steps and Alex could imagine the priests and the congregation cowering inside. After all, what had happened was like some biblical plague. They swung around to the right and for the first time he saw it: a handsome domed building made out of gray stone with, high up, a statue of a woman carrying a sword and scales. The Central Criminal Court. Also known as the Old Bailey.
He was right.
The ambulance stopped outside a thick, modern wall made of reinforced concrete. The bulk of the Old Bailey was many hundreds of years old, but Alex knew that parts of it had been added more recently. They had come around to one of the side entrances.
Charlie turned off the engine. The Colonel twisted around. “All right, gentlemen,” he said. “Let’s get suited up.”
The other soldiers moved into action straightaway. Alex saw guns being taken out, tested, then concealed. He had no weapon himself—Sarko hadn’t been carrying one when he was knocked out—and now he hoped that nobody would notice. Both Charlie and Colonel Sykes had put on surgical masks that completely covered the lower halves of their faces. So that was why they hadn’t needed disguises! It was perfectly reasonable for paramedics to be protecting themselves against any contagion and there was no chance of their being recognized.
Everyone was ready. Sykes glanced one last time at his men. “You all know what to do,” he said. “Good luck. Ten minutes maximum and we’ll be on our way.”
He nodded. Charlie stayed in the driving seat. The other men threw open the doors and climbed out. Alex hesitated. He hadn’t been there when they discussed the plan. He didn’t know what to do.
“Get a move on, Sarko,” the shorter man—Danny—called to him.
Alex knew he had no choice. Operation London Down had entered its second phase, and like it or not, he was part of it. Gritting his teeth, he climbed out of the ambulance and joined the rest of them in the street.
5
PHANTOM LADY
ON A NORMAL DAY, the Old Bailey would have been surrounded by security. During high-profile trials it was quite common to see police officers strolling along the sidewalks with gas-operated Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifles cradled in their arms, and even an ambulance would have been unable to park anywhere near any of the main entrances without proper authorization. But there was nothing normal about this day, and as the Colonel had rightly guessed, a working ambulance with a healthy crew would be welcomed with open arms.
Alex followed Sykes, Khyber, Danny, and Gareth across the sidewalk and in through a modern door, complete with metal scanners and security cameras. They found themselves in a bare, brightly lit reception area, where there were two security guards on duty. At least, one of them was. He was about fifty years old, gray-haired, with the name TRAVIS written on a badge on his jacket. He had the look and the manner of a retired policeman. The other guard was sitting on a chair, bent over, with his hands clutched across his stomach. It was instantly obvious which one of them had eaten a chocolate bar on his way to work.
“What took you so long?” Travis demanded. “I called for backup an hour ago.” He was exaggerating. An hour ago, the outbreak hadn’t even begun.
“I’m sorry—” the Colonel began, speaking from behind his surgical mask.
“It’s madness here. We’ve got lawyers, judges, half the juries . . . They’re all sick. Look at Johnson!” He pointed at the other guard. “He doesn’t know what to do with himself!”
“I feel bad,” Johnson groaned.
“We’ll deal with your friend as soon as we can,” Sykes responded. “But we’ve been called here to deal with one of the prisoners. Sir Frederick Meadows. He’s had a major heart attack. He’s critical.”
Travis had been trained never to allow anyone through the doors, no matter what the circumstances. Normally, he would have demanded to see the paramedics’ ID and then called the hospital for confirmation. But he had never encountered anything like this. Everyone around him seemed to be dying. Even Johnson, his closest friend in the building, had been brought down. Finally, help had arrived. He was in no mood to argue.
“All right,” he said. “But you’re not leaving until you’ve looked after my mate.”
A second door, solid with a small glass window, led out of the reception area. The guard used his electronic key card to open it, and the Colonel, followed by his three men and an increasingly uneasy Alex, passed through. Should he raise the alarm now, while they were inside the building? No. He remembered the various weapons he had seen when they were in the ambulance. Both Travis and Johnson were unarmed. If he started a gunfight inside the Old Bailey, he might end up getting them both killed. He still had no idea where this was going or how he was going to get out of it, but for the time being he had no choice but to play along.
Travis took them down a long, empty corridor with white-tiled walls and a wooden floor, ever farther into the building. They walked down a flight of stairs to another locked door with a third guard outside, slumped in a chair, sweating.
“Are you all right, Jim?” Travis asked.
“No.” It was all the guard could manage, to spit out the single word.
“I’ve brought help. Open the door.”
Jim was as unquestioning as Travis had been. This door had a keypad and needed a six-figure combination before it would unlock, but he managed to do it, fighting his pain to focus on the right numbers. Ahead of them, a second corridor stretched out, this one with cell doors spaced out at regular intervals, facing each other on both sides. A fourth and final guard sat at a small table with a number of files in front of him. He was a young man with a neat beard. He looked up as they approached.
“What is it?” he demanded. He looked past Travis at the group of fake paramedics, and Alex saw at once that he was smarter than his colleagues and that if he’d picked up a free chocolate bar, he hadn’t eaten it.
“They’ve come to help,” Travis explained. He made it sound obvious. “They want to see Meadows.”
“They can’t just walk in here!” The younger guard was astonished. “Do they have authorization?”
“Everyone’s sick!” Even as Travis tried to explain, Alex understood what had happened. This new guard had been inside the building all morning and he was completely unaware of what was happening outside. “It’s crazy out there,” Travis concluded. “You’ve got to let them in!”
“I’m sorry!” The guard was only in his twenties, but he knew what he was doing. “You’ve got to follow the procedure. Anyway, I saw Meadows five minutes ago. He’s fine!”
That was as far as he got. The Colonel stepped forward and Alex saw him slip a handgun out of his pocket. It was a Mauser M2, self-loading and semiautomatic, and Alex knew he had to act even if it meant giving himself away. He couldn’t just watch as the guard was shot in front of him. But before he could do anything, the Colonel swung the weapon through the air, using it as a club. The guard grunted and collapsed. At the same time, Khyber brought out his own gun and held it against Travis’s neck.
“What . . . ?” Travis began.
“Shut up,” Khyber whispered. “Make a move and I’ll kill you.”
Travis had gone white. Meanwhile, Danny stepped forward and searched the unconscious man. He found a bunch of keys and tossed them to Alex
. Just for a second, Alex hesitated. “Get on with it, Sarko,” Danny growled.
Alex nodded then, keeping his head down, and hurried forward, examining the cells. Each one had a number, but there were no names attached, perhaps for reasons of security. Fortunately, the doors had peepholes. The first two cells were empty. The third contained a red-haired woman reading a magazine. The fourth was empty again. Alex found what he was looking for in the fifth.
Sir Frederick Meadows was sitting on the edge of his bunk, his hands resting on his knees. He was dressed in an immaculate charcoal suit with a white shirt and a dark blue tie. His shoes were brightly polished. Alex recognized him from the photograph he had seen that morning. The banker was perhaps a little neater than he had imagined, with a perfectly round head and a prim mustache that could almost have been drawn on with a pencil. He was wearing round, rather schoolboyish glasses. There was a slight smile on his face. Looking at him, it was hard to believe that he was sitting in London’s most famous court, about to go on trial for the theft of a hundred million pounds.
Alex’s eye was drawn to a gold signet ring on one of Sir Frederick’s fingers. One of his six fingers. It was strange but absolutely true. There were five fingers next to the thumb on his left hand. Alex blinked. If he hadn’t read about it in the newspaper, he might not have even noticed, because actually—if you didn’t bother counting—the hand looked completely normal. The banker hadn’t noticed him yet. Quickly, Alex searched through the keys, found the right one, and used it to open the door.
Sir Frederick looked up. He didn’t seem surprised to see Alex. “Yes?” he asked.
Alex Rider--Secret Weapon Page 9