Sam nodded. “We haven’t got much time. That stuff doesn’t last long so let’s open this fucker up and see what he’s got to tell us.”
With the UN Peace Summit upon them in just a matter of days, the new intelligence would have serious ramifications on the security of the event. Sam knew it was his responsibility as head of counter-terrorism at British Intelligence MI6 to keep London and the rest of the UK safe from afar. Six’s capture of Rikard gave them the intel. But it was down to MI5 to take it and crash Al Nadir’s party.
Sam was the first to arrive for the meeting at the Terrace, as the intelligence fraternity called it. Close to Whitehall, the Thames and River Houses, the Terrace was highly favored by all parties as it offered exclusive privacy and excellent convenience. It was also neutral ground, preventing no inherent feelings borne of location that could potentially give an advantage to one party over the others. To outsiders, it was just another bland, white-fronted Victorian townhouse that London had in abundance.
Sam entered the green-lit cubicle and waited for the biometric analysis. His retina, palm and then full body scan took place in seconds. Upon completion, he was granted access to proceed. He walked down the narrow corridor. With the exception of the sparsely distributed wall lights, the corridor held little illumination. The heavy, burgundy, velvet adorning the walls made it dark and forbidding. It was neither an inviting or happy place. Sam reached the end, opened a heavy oak door and walked into the room.
On entering, he took in his surroundings while he selected a place to sit.
A massive mahogany table overpowered the small room, which had little other furniture except for a slim credenza on the back wall holding a decanter and highball glasses. It was the whiskey platform. The floor was oak and showed signs of wear. Deep indentations and jagged burns suggested it had witnessed a history of conflict. At the window, the curtains were closed. The super tough, laser-resistant glass fitted as standard throughout the Terrace was hidden from view.
Sam glanced up at the ceiling. It was pure white with an attractive coving and a completely ostentatious crystal chandelier that begged for a palatial grand hall. Dark, oak-paneled walls that looked at least a century old surrounded him.
The room was trapped in time. Nothing reflected that it was in the twenty-first century. But Sam knew looks were always deceptive. Behind the antiquated structures, surveillance and biomedical analysis systems silently hummed, running their assigned routines to keep the room’s inhabitants safe.
The discovery of Al Nadir’s nano-bomb technology had changed the rules on terrorism, and no one was taking any chances. Despite their previous supremacy, the intelligence elite throughout the world knew that the countdown had begun.
Chapter 36
2 Months Earlier
Sam had worked with Jerry, a fellow field agent, on a mission in Rome, Italy to capture a man known only as Palmero who was reputed to be Al Nadir’s head of strategic operations for Southern Europe. Sam had a bad feeling in his gut about the ease with which Palmero had allowed himself to be captured. But Jerry had no such qualms.
On capture, he’d thrown Palmero into the back of the van and was preparing to extract some serious talking before they arrived at the secure holding bunker.
“Shit! I think he’s ill.”
Sam knew the moment Jerry uttered these fateful words that something was seriously wrong. All at once, instinct told Sam what to do.
He screamed at Jerry, “Get the hell away from him!”
But the speed of events swept his words away in the maelstrom that followed.
Sam turned and ran away from the van. But as Jerry tried to pull away, Palmero grabbed his leather jacket. Jerry looked back and caught sight of Palmero’s face. With skin of deep purple, eyes bulbous and bloodshot, he smiled sickly at Jerry and mouthed, “Fuck you!” Then promptly exploded.
Diving for cover behind a Peugeot Estate, Sam’s heart raced as he tried to piece together what had just happened. Palmero had been searched. He’d had no explosives on him. Sam pushed his head above the bonnet of the car and watched a chain of secondary explosions rip the van apart. Shrapnel hurled in all directions. Flames and acrid smoke billowed out from the vehicle shell that remained on the ground. Sam couldn’t see Jerry or Palmero anywhere. As the explosions subsided, Sam rose to his feet to check for survivors.
A dull thud to his right caught his attention. The smell of burning flesh assaulted his senses. Sam whipped his head around to see what had caused the sound and stared straight into Jerry’s horror-struck eyes. His head and torso had landed at Sam’s feet. The rest of his body parts had been scattered, bloody and burning, around the site. Steel from the van had torn through Jerry when it exploded, ripping him into pieces. Metal shards protruded through Jerry’s stomach, now but a grotesque human pincushion.
Sam gagged instinctively. He held his hand over his mouth, and then swallowed hard as his training kicked in. He shuddered ferociously and looked away, forcing down the bile surging in his throat. But his revulsion was overpowered by another emotion. Anger. From that moment, Sam was driven to the point of obsession to find out what had initiated the explosion that killed Jerry.
Chapter 37
After Jerry’s death, British Intelligence had been on high alert. Sam knew the meeting at Vauxhall Cross would be decisive. It was a culmination of five weeks spent tracking, interrogating, reviewing and analyzing to discover the cause of the explosion. As is the way in intelligence, Sam uncovered the truth through a combination of good surveillance, opportunity and solid hypothesis.
GCHQ had been doing their job monitoring signals and communications. Essentially everything that could be intercepted was heard by them. They had tracked a rogue signal during a routine frequency sweeping exercise. A few seconds later, an explosion took place at the signal’s destination point. Coincidence wasn’t a consideration. Immediately, the frequency was locked and automatic scanning assigned on the frequency, along with orders to detect and alert if another signal was broadcast.
The signal GCHQ found was analyzed and discovered to be a carrier for an encoded secondary signal that stored a heavily encrypted software program. Analysts spent hours decrypting and deconstructing the code. The analysts carefully avoided cyber booby-traps and behavioral-based heuristic viruses that, if unleashed, could literally flip algorithmic processes and create backdoors into the heart of the UK’s most secure national security data repositories. It was both a painstaking and nerve-wracking process but the analysts worked tirelessly and what they discovered staggered the intelligence community.
Sam took his place at the table. He scanned the room. Around him were leading scientists and engineering experts, but Sam knew they were all waiting on him to contribute his hypothesis on the code’s function. His reputation in nano-technology preceded him. A first at Cambridge in physics and a doctorate in micro-engineering took him into IBM as a research scientist for a few years. Post-doctorate research work in intelligent micro-machines attracted the attention of the UK’s Ministry of Defense, and they soon came running with an inviting proposition. While at the MoD, Sam had worked on an ultra-secret military reconnaissance project: SWARM (Strategic Wide-scale Assessment and Response Machines). He had led the team that developed prototype nano-agents. The nano-agent’s purpose was to collect data on the enemy’s position, troop movements and environmental conditions, thus determining the enemy’s tactics and strategies for counterattack.
No one around the table doubted that the decrypted code was connected in some way to nano-technology, but they didn’t yet know in what capacity Al Nadir was employing it. Sam had studied the code and recognized references to biological structures. Rather than discuss what it couldn’t be, Sam decided to go straight for his lead hypothesis.
“This nano-structure works in an organic architecture,” stated Sam boldly to the assembled scientists. He pointed to the sections of the code relating to his idea on the LCD screen.
“That’s a presumptu
ous assumption to make, Dr. Noor. It’s true that it does appear to need an organic structure to work. This area of the code may even be referencing human DNA, but we need more analysis of the code and, of course, the nano-machine for which the code was written,” said the scientist sat closest to Sam.
Ignoring the presumptuous assumption snide, Sam grew very suddenly and unexpectedly frustrated. “It’s a nano-bomb!” he shouted.
The faces around the table sneered at his unbelievable suggestion.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” muttered the scientist who had spoken previously.
But Sam wasn’t being ridiculous. Throughout the discussion, his mind had gone back to Rome and the Al Nadir agent who had inexplicably exploded.
“Think about the evidence. Look at Rome with Jerry. I personally checked Palmero. I know he had nothing on him. And there’s been other examples. Lagos and Chicago this week and Moscow the week before. Face it. Al Nadir operatives have been blowing up, taking our agents with them, and there’s nothing that we could do about it. We know Stein-Muller, the hottest man in nano-tech has gone AWOL from his company. And now we have a nano programme that implies in its code use within an organic, maybe even human, DNA structure. Whether you think I’m crazy or not, I don’t care. But the evidence shows that somehow Al Nadir is using nano-machines to follow a program to turn a human into a bomb. No explosives. No wires. No failure. The ultimate suicide bomber.”
The room went very still and very quiet as all those around the table contemplated Sam’s words.
“We’ve got to get our hands on those nano-machines,” stated Sir Justin Maide anxiously. “That’s the only way we’ll know for sure.”
Chapter 38
From Sir Justin Maide’s voice, Sam knew he was in for a rapid ride. After the meeting, Maide had virtually run him out of the Vauxhall Cross, eager to see him tracking down the origin of the suspected nano-bomb. A recent sighting of Stein-Muller in a Dubai night club coupled with a rogue signal tracked back to a building in the Emirate had Sam in a car hurtling towards RAF Northolt. An hour later, he was in the air and heading towards Dubai.
On the plane, he was brought up to speed on events. A blind account linked to Stein-Muller with an amount of twenty million dollars had been found. Sam knew it was safe to assume it wasn’t for work done in developing nano-tubules to reinforce tennis rackets.
An MI6 surveillance agent who had been eyeballing Stein-Muller’s movements saw him in a Dubai hotel joined by Al Nadir operatives. After leaving, the operative had trailed Stein-Muller and watched him enter a heavily guarded facility on the outskirts of the city. He stayed in the facility for over an hour, and then departed back to his hotel. The surveillance agent kept close to him, but on instruction, he didn’t approach. The surveillance system the agent placed in Stein-Muller’s room was sufficient.
“Standby to receive surveillance data.”
Sam waited for his laptop to signal safe download. “All received, sir.”
“You’ll be co-oping with the CIA on this one,” said Maide. “I believe you know Ricky Alexander. He knows the facility and has good ground experience. A bird will fly you down to your rendezvous point at Khwaneej. It should be a quick in-out. Good luck, Sam, and Godspeed.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Sam switched off the transmission and settled in to review the images on his laptop. Unlike a few years ago when spy satellites gave everything away, Al Nadir’s bases were now cloaked by encrypted frequencies that jammed satellite surveillance. So Sam was amazed to see real-time thermal images of the facility in such clarity. He’d have to ask Ricky about that one. Sam smiled. He didn’t expect to be working again so soon with Ricky. He hoped it wouldn’t be another Cairo.
Chapter 39
The plane touched down at a US military air base, once given by the ruler of Dubai and received with gratitude by the US Air Force. Sam raced from the plane to the waiting bird and gave the thumbs up for the pilot to lift off.
Below him, the landscape changed from box villas in a tight grid to sprawling farmhouses with lush vegetation and wandering livestock. The area of Khwaneej was famed for its rich Emiratis with their weekend homes, places to relax and unwind away from the never-ending hustle of Dubai. Most farms had their own heli-pads as travelling on Dubai’s heavily congested roads was not an activity commensurate with rapid relaxation.
Sam’s rendezvous point came into sight. A dull, off-white block rising from the sandy floor, with several outbuildings of varying sizes daubed in the same dirty white color, was surrounded by squares of grungy green vegetable patches and date palms.
The helicopter descended onto the pad and Sam ducked as he alighted.
A door at the front of the farmhouse opened and a towering figure emerged. At first, the morning sun reflecting off the windows glared in Sam’s eyes and prevented him from discerning the man’s features. His hand tensed momentarily on his gun until the man moved closer.
“Good to see you!”
Sam smiled and returned his gun as he heard Ricky’s heavy Bronx drawl. Nearing him, Sam glimpsed his blond hair cragged back into a rough ponytail and his confident swagger.
“I really didn’t think you’d want to work with me again. Not after Cairo!”
Five Months Earlier
Cairo. August. Hot, sweaty and smelly. Chasing a Spanish Al Nadir senior lieutenant down a cramped alley. All around them, doors suddenly shut and the alley vanished of people. It soon became clear to Sam that Ricky, in his singular tenacity to acquire his target, had led them directly into a rather nasty ambush.
With a gun to Sam’s head, courtesy of another Al Nadir agent, and Ricky with his gun trained on his original quarry, all four men were caught in a real game of who blinks first.
“Oh, kill him. I don’t care. He means nothing!” shouted Ricky unexpectedly, and he cocked his gun ready to shoot the terrorist.
In return, the terrorist with his gun on Sam cocked his.
“I mean nothing? You bastard. I thought you loved me!” Sam shouted back.
The startling words from the mouth of a towering, tough guy shook the terrorists’ machismo, and unbalanced their standing.
“Oh, that’s typical. Air your dirty linen in public!” screamed Ricky, making sure he had captured both terrorists’ full attention.
“It’s alright for you. You’re not the one with a gun at his head. How could you do this?” called back Sam in the most fey tone he could muster.
“Oh, kill him. I can’t stand his whining.”
“You animal!” screamed Sam, looking hurt.
From the corner of his eye, he could see his terrorist captor was no longer watching him, but was fixated by their gay interplay.
“Right back at you, sweetcheeks,” retorted Ricky bitchily.
“Even after last night?” questioned Sam, behaving as if the two terrorists didn’t exist.
“Especially after last night. I mean your performance…”
“Yes?” Sam feigned anticipation.
“Well, darling,” shouted back Ricky. “It was well below par.”
“Below par!” yelled back Sam, putting his hands on his waist. “How could you say that?”
“It’s simple, darling. You’ve just lost it.”
As Ricky spoke, Sam’s hands flew up in the air in an effeminate expressive gesture. “Lost it!” he screamed, and at the same time, he grabbed the terrorist’s arm, wrenched it up and locked it behind the terrorist’s back.
He howled as Sam’s lightning action snapped his bones with stunning ease. Searing pain shot through the nerves of the Al Nadir agent and his fingers let go of the gun. It dropped to the dirty ground, where Sam snatched it quickly and drove it hard into the terrified terrorist.
“Don’t fucking move or I’ll blow your face off!”
The terrorist, in absolute agony with his arm ripped out of its socket, shattered in a dozen places and twisted the wrong way around, didn’t argue.
“Well done, darling.
” Ricky’s face lit up with approval. “I think your performance has improved some.”
Chapter 40
Outside the villa in Dubai, Sam looked at Ricky and shook his head. He knew he was a wild card, but he enjoyed their assignments together. And wasn’t craziness close to genius? Just what one needs when in a dangerous squeeze.
“So why are you here?” asked Ricky, smiling broadly.
“They bribed me with two weeks extra holiday,” called back Sam.
“Yeah, like you’d take it.” Ricky gave Sam a knowing wink, threw his arms around his back and bear hugged him. “Don’t know why that wife of yours stays. I’m sure she could do better!” Ricky noticed a flicker of sadness in Sam’s eyes. Maybe his ribbing was a little close to the bone. “Ah, well, maybe she couldn’t,” he added, slapping Sam on the back. “Come on in. I’ll let you see what’s happening down the block.”
Ricky led Sam into his office, which was dominated by a fifty-inch screen.
“You got the images ok?” asked Ricky.
Sam nodded. “Yes I did, and I’d be interested to know what you’re using.”
A conceited expression erupted on Ricky’s face. “Al Nadir reckons they can keep us blind. But they’re wrong.”
He pressed a couple of keys on the keyboard and the screen flickered into focus showing a picture of a large facility with a high wall surrounding it.
“This is where the nano-bomb is being held.”
Ricky pointed to the right-hand side of the facility. He pressed a key and the screen segmented into four quarters, showing live thermal feeds from different directions.
“Pin-hole cameras positioned in rocks give us a 360-degree viewpoint. Thermal molecular imaging gives us a clear picture of what’s going down,” explained Ricky. “And improvements in our scanning technology mean they can be located farther away from the target.”
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