Storm Crow

by Jeff Gulvin

  The Antiterrorist Branch had secured plans of the building and they knew that the layout of the target flat was the same as that on the floor above. A large living room with a kitchen off it and two bedrooms. The front door opened straight on to the living room and the EOD operators had already made the assumption that it was booby-trapped. The best point of entry was through the wall of the flat next door. The Engineers were busy scraping away plaster in the flat above, in order to assess exactly what the wall construction was. This confirmed, the two men from the entry team could access Flat 14 and work on the adjoining wall.

  They could hear the other Engineers setting up their abseil ropes, as the two who were assisting them opened the door to Flat 14 with a hydraulic ramp. Here they needed stealth rather than force: the wrong sort of shock wave through the walls might trip whatever device had been set. The heat was intense; the sun had broken through the clouds and was magnified by the size of the windows. Porter and Mitchell worked side by side with the two Engineers, listening to the thud outside as the abseilers fired home their bolts. At each mini-explosion, Porter held his breath. His eye holes had misted in the respirator, making him twist his head sideways to see. He had checked it again on the way up, even though it had been checked and rechecked with pentyl acetate outside.

  Using diamond-headed drills, they broke a hole through the mortar between the grey breeze blocks that had been exposed in a patch two feet square in the wall. Porter had an infrared endoscopic probe ready for insertion and the camera set up to replay what it saw. The drill cleared the brickwork and automatically cut out. Porter knew they had struck the plaster beyond. Resetting the drill, he broke the plaster and came up against wallpaper, pushed on through and then withdrew the drill bit. They worked low down on the wall. It was unlikely to be booby-trapped, but they did not know what sort of light or movement sensors might have been set up on the other side. Phil Cregan had briefed them on the elaborate hoax that had been pulled at Queen’s House Mews and they were taking no chances.

  Once they were through, Mitchell selected the fibre-optic probe and passed it to his colleague. Porter took it in hands encased in black rubber and cursed the fact that the gloves were so cumbersome. He worked with the probe and, taking his time, began to feed it through the tiny hole in the bottom of the wall. Outside, he heard another shuddering thud, as an explosive bolt was set into the concrete balcony. The sooner they had that bag set up, the better they all would feel. Once it was done and secure, the Engineers would fall back and only he and Mitchell would be left. From somewhere above, he could hear the whirr of rotorblades and he imagined other soldiers, hooded and masked, patrolling the perimeter line with guns.

  George Webb manned the operations room. Once again he was caged inside his charcoal suit, listening to the hoarse wind of his breath through a respirator. Christine was NBC-trained and she was watching the traffic cameras while Webb manned the radio. From here, he could talk to any officer or soldier out there; he could talk to the two 11 EOD entry men or Major Hewitt, and he could patch them all through to Garrod in White City. He looked out of the window and saw the hubbub of Westminster. It would be a good few hours yet before the evacuation was complete and he imagined the turmoil in the counties, as the respective councils battled with emergency-planning procedures that would be more than overloaded. How many boroughs? How many people? Hackney, Stepney, Poplar, the City, Tower Hamlets, Camberwell, Brixton, Clapham, Battersea, and all those stretching south-west in the path of the downwind hazard. Parliament had gone already, MPs scuttling for their constituencies like pack rats. The government had removed to Chequers and Whitehall was rapidly deserting. The Foreign Secretary was going as far as Europe.

  Porter had the probe in place and was now able to scan the contents of the darkened room through the infrared lens: the images were relayed back to the mini-monitor he held in his hand. Mitchell pressed his head close, so their bomb helmets were touching and they could speak to each other. The radio line was open, and, downstairs, Hewitt wanted to know what they saw. The camera probed the far side of the wall and, as it did, the layout of the room was exposed to them piece by piece. There was no furniture, or rather there was, but it was all pressed against the opposing wall, directly across from where they squatted next door. That left the exposed space of the floor and the window to their right. The probe twisted right and Porter saw what looked like a large wooden box, like the chests people have at the bottom of their beds. He moved closer and higher and he saw a metal wall rack fixed to the floor right in front of the window. On the rack he counted a substantial number of short scaffolding pipes, set like mortars at an angle of forty-five degrees. He could see the twists of wire extending from the base of the tubes.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he muttered.

  ‘What’ve we got, Tiny?’ Hewitt’s voice in his ear.

  ‘The biggest fucking mortar I’ve ever seen.’ He described the IED and then said, ‘They’ve layered the window with det cord. Glass’ll go a nanosecond before the bomb, which is bolted to the floor. There’s no chance of moving it, sir. We might get Buck-eye active, once we see what we’re doing. But if the box is booby-trapped, we’ll have to do a manual RSP, and fuck that won’t be easy.’

  Sitting in the truck in the underpass, Hewitt could feel the perspiration gathering on his palms beneath the taut rubber of his gloves. Already he was considering options and the possible consequences of choice. What’s the best that can happen? What’s most likely to happen? What’s the worst that can happen? The latter didn’t bear thinking about.

  Porter studied the camera images and paused to consider the movement sensors. They were wired to one another along the walls; four he counted, all linked, possibly by collapsing circuits, to the main device. He could not tell for sure, but it looked like the sensors were crossing each other at about chest height.

  ‘Four-sensor booby trap,’ he said. The scope twisted the other way and now he could make out the door. ‘Booby trap on the door, separate device linked to the handle and wired to the IED. The door is twenty-millimetre boxwood. We could get through it with one strand of Cordtex 22, but it might trip the main device.’ He sighed heavily through his mask. ‘Now we’ve decided on this hole, I’d rather use Buck-eye to pig-stick it. At least we can see what we’re doing.’

  Webb listened to the conversation between Hewitt in the underpass at Beech Street and his entry team twenty-three storeys above his head. The Engineers had the balloon in place and Hewitt’s men on the ground described it as one hundred feet of condom dangling down the side of the building. If it wasn’t so serious, they’d laugh. Two Engineers were now back on the twenty-third floor to cut a hole in the wall large enough for the entry team to get through. They had drilling equipment which would take out the mortar on two breeze blocks and then they could haul out the stone. Four men in immediate danger.

  Swann, impotent all at once, watched the evacuation as it was played out on television, in a surreal, almost movielike fashion. He wished now he had volunteered to man the ops room with Webb. The news broadcast told him that, as yet, no one who was outside the cordon had tried to break back in. One enormous problem was rounding up the homeless and loading them into open-back army lorries that had flooded the city from every available barracks. Helicopter cameras zoomed in on the masked and suited soldiers, shifting cardboard city at gunpoint. Swann wondered how many of them would slip the net, and return to the no-go area as looters. They could have a field day. So far, the Prime Minister had said nothing about looters. The army or police would arrest them, but one or two might slip the net. Once inside the dirty line, they could never come out again. He shrugged his shoulders. If they were exposed to D10, they’d die. They’d burn the bodies there. The TV pictures jumped to another massive pile-up on the M25 at the M3 intersection. Swann watched, as tempers flared and two men started a fist fight on the hard shoulder.

  Larry Thomas, the FBI weapons of mass destruction agent, was listening to the pandemonium over poli
ce radios north of the city. Police forces nationwide had been alerted, and around London the county forces were assisting with the refugees fleeing the potential carnage in the city. TV crews had descended in number and pressmen were massing at the outer cordon. Those living outside the specified areas were equally panicking, refusing to ignore the government advice to stay in their homes. Some older people inside the dirty line had refused to go at all.

  Back in White City, Swann watched the pictures as some drivers tried to avoid the congestion by getting on to the A40. They were promptly stopped by police and forced back on to the other roads. Another fight broke out and he watched three uniforms bundle one of the antagonists to the ground. Ten minutes later, Tony Blair went back on TV from Chequers and appealed for calm. He cited the British quality of combined fortitude when facing a massive threat. ‘Work together,’ he urged them, ‘not against each other’.

  Outside London, the county councils were desperately trying to cope with the deluge of incomers from the capital. There were not enough hospital beds and makeshift wards were springing up in army camps, community halls and hotels to cope with the infirm from the London hospitals. All doctors’ leave was cancelled and naval medical personnel were flown in to assist from Haslar. Empty hospitals inside the inner cordon were under armed guard as were the banks, against the threat from looters. Swann watched as the images flicked from London to the counties: Oxford and Reading; the concrete mass of Basingstoke where people fled in their droves.

  Harrison spoke on the phone to his contact agent. ‘What’s happening?’ Scheller asked him.

  ‘Don’t know. Something’s up. Tate tried to pick a fight with me the other night. The atmosphere’s changed. I can smell it.’

  ‘You need back-up?’

  ‘I can handle it.’

  ‘The main man?’

  ‘Not been seen. Plenty of movement from the others, mind you. I’ve got the T-17s set up. I’ll check them out tonight.’

  ‘Johnny, we’re thinking about coming in anyway. This thing in London.’

  ‘And lose, Max? No way. I already told Kovalski, we have no evidence against Salvesen. Busting in on him now isn’t gonna stop what’s happening in London.’

  ‘They’re worried about you in D.C. Your “hello” lines were called.’

  ‘I know that, Max. I can handle it. I’ve got to check those T-17s. If I don’t, we’ll never have anything on Salvesen. I’ll call in every twelve hours. If you don’t hear from me in twenty-four, send in the cavalry.’

  He rang off and walked back from the Valley Market to the lumber yard where Danny was operating the crane. Mark Eddington watched him. Eddington was a casual crony of Wingo and worked in the yard scraping logs into shape by hand. He claimed to be very knowledgeable about the US constitution and subscribed to the underground military magazine The Register. Rather than refuse a driver’s licence, he had signed for one ‘without prejudice’ and ‘under duress’. He argued that under the constitution he had a right to travel granted him by God. By imposing the licence on him, the state had taken away that right and forced him to accept a privilege of the state instead. According to the authors of the Bill, of Rights, no right should ever be abrogated by a privilege. Harrison thought it was bullshit paranoia. Eddington was the one who’d sworn he’d seen Gurkhas training in The Pioneers. He could feel the man’s eyes on his back all the way to the crane.

  They quit work at lunchtime that day and Harrison went for a drink in Joe’s club. It was dark inside and a couple of Mexicans were shooting a game of pool. There was drizzle in the air and Harrison had his jacket zipped to the neck, his grubby baseball hat pulled low to his ears. Five minutes before one, Wingo drove by in Jesse’s truck.

  Back in his trailer, Harrison picked up the second book by Hal Lindsey that Max Scheller had got for him and he flicked through the first few pages. He was so absorbed he did not hear the truck move slowly through the trailer park. The door swung suddenly open and Jesse Tate levelled a Casull 454 handgun at him, complete with telescopic sights. It could take down a bull elk at two hundred yards. Harrison looked at the gun, then at the others; Drake and Wingo. They both held sidearms. He felt sweat creep between his legs.

  Jesse stared at him with a light in his eyes that reminded him of darkness. Drake looked at the notes on the table and grinned. ‘The evidence,’ he said, nudging. Jesse. Jesse looked down and his face lost its colour. Harrison watched his finger over the trigger of the Casull. He’d always boasted about the 300-grain hollow points it sported. For a second, Harrison thought he was going to shoot him there and then. He did not. He spoke in a low menacing voice.

  ‘You’re a federal agent, Harrison. And the way you’ve been conducting yourself goes against the highest law of this United States. You’re unconstitutional and that means you’ve committed treason.’ He paused then and smiled. ‘You know the penalty for treason.’

  He moved towards him then and handed him a piece of paper. Harrison looked at it and shallowed his breath; a warrant for his arrest issued by the ‘Common Law County Court’. Jesse motioned for him to get up, then he glanced down at the pile of papers on the table. ‘Bring the evidence, Drake.’ He looked again at Harrison, the barrel of the Casull no more than twelve inches from his chest. ‘Your real name’s John Dollar,’ he said. ‘We’re arresting you under county common law. You’ll be taken before the court, tried, and hanged by the neck till you’re dead.’

  25

  SWANN WENT TO SEE DI Clements. ‘Guv, what about having another go at Cairns and co?’

  ‘Right now?’ Clements looked at him. ‘We’ve got enough hassle trying to shift prisoners out of the contamination area, let alone interview them.’

  Swann coloured. It was true, all the prisoners in London had had to be evacuated along with everyone else. The nightmare was where to put them. If ever there was an ideal time to try to escape it was now.

  He went back down the corridor and bumped into Logan. ‘Cheyenne, have you got that last batch of surveillance product?’ he asked her. ‘I want to take another look.’

  ‘Sure.’ They went back into the makeshift squad room where Logan opened her briefcase and laid out the pictures from Jakob Salvesen’s office.

  Swann skimmed the pictures and stopped at the one which he thought might be Winthrop instructions underneath the receipt for the meal in Paris. ‘Be nice to get hold of the original to this,’ he said, tapping the picture. ‘Somebody’s handwriting. I’d bet my flat this is Winthrop.’

  ‘Directions to get to a dead drop or something?’ Logan said.

  Swann nodded. ‘PIRA use it all the time. Concealment and accessibility, the key to a decent weapons hide.’ He studied the receipt then. He had been about to go to Paris when the blacked-out window was discovered. Taking the photograph with him, he went in search of Clements once more and found him in conference with Colson. Swann hovered in the doorway and Clements rolled his eyes at him. ‘Yes, Jack.’

  ‘I want to go to Paris, Guv.’

  ‘Paris?’

  ‘Yes. I was due to go before all this blew up. Remember?’

  ‘The receipt,’ Colson said.

  Swann nodded. ‘Might as well go now. It might give us a body the FBI can use to hit Salvesen.’

  Clements looked at Colson, who nodded. ‘Fine with me. Get yourself on a chopper to Southampton, Jack. You can get a plane from there.’

  Back in the outer office, Swann phoned Caroline Webb’s house and spoke to Pia. ‘I’m going away for a day or so, Pia. Will you be all right with the kids?’

  ‘I can’t go to work, can I. To tell you the truth I like having them.’

  Swann paused, thought for a moment, then bit the bullet. ‘Listen, this is hardly the time, but will you marry me?’

  Silence, save the softness of her breathing.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Ridiculous thing to ask you.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ she said. ‘Jack, I’d love to marry you. But I can’t.’

&nbs
p; ‘Why not?’

  ‘I just can’t get married.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Oh, I can’t explain on the phone.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Don’t be like that. You said yourself it was a ridiculous time to ask.’

  ‘Yeah. Right. Sorry.’ He looked at the receipt in his hand. ‘Anyway, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you from Paris.’

  ‘You’re going to Paris?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There are no planes.’

  ‘There are plenty of planes, Pia. They’re just oversubscribed. I’m Old Bill, aren’t I. I think I can get a seat.’

  ‘What’re you going to Paris for?’

  ‘Just checking on something. I’ll phone you, all right?’

  ‘OK.’ Again she was quiet. ‘Listen, we’ll talk when you get back.’

  ‘Sure. Kiss the kids for me, will you?’

  He was on the common waiting for a ride to Northolt and the helicopter, when Louis Byrne came down. Across the green, the army were setting up a field canteen, the other side from the decontamination tents. Byrne stood upwind of his cigarette smoke.

  ‘You going to Paris?’

  ‘Yes. I want to find out who Jake Salvesen had dinner with.’

  ‘I’d still like to come along.’

  ‘Be my guest, Louis.’

  They hitched a ride on a lorry going back along the A40 to Northolt, and witnessed first-hand the plight of the people still fleeing the capital. The TV had reported two overloaded trains almost running into one another because of a signal failure in Kent. Near misses and not so near misses everywhere you looked. At Northolt, they got a helicopter ride with two scientists who were returning to Porton Down. Until the entry team had got an idea on what was inside the flat, there was little they could do at the crime scene. At Porton Down, Swann got hold of a car and he and Byrne drove to Southampton. They had to wait for a couple of hours, but squeezed on the last flight to Orly.