Nine Lives (Sam Archer 1)

by Tom Barber

ELEVEN

  Inside his office at 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister was also standing still, staring straight ahead. He was in front of his desk, leaning back against the polished wood, deep in thought.

  This whole thing with the suicide bombing cell was a nightmare situation and the circumstances leading up to the current police operation were consuming his every thought. Although three of the suspects had been located during the day, there were still six of them out there, and now the sun had gone down.

  One thing was for sure; it was going to be one hell of a long night.

  He glanced at the clock hanging on the wall to his right, an expensive Swiss model, Roman numerals mounted on an ivory white backing all surrounded by highly-polished gold plated metal.

  The slender black dials were pointing at 5:47pm.

  Just over six hours till midnight and the New Year.

  The Prime Minister shook his head. What a way to close this one out.

  It had been a rough twelve months for him and his cabinet. Elections were due to start in April, with opposition leaders already campaigning around the country for the right to take over the helm. The proud man leaning against the desk sighed. He was desperate to continue, to make a difference. In his head, he thought he might have a chance of being re-elected for another four years, but in his heart he knew it was unlikely to happen. And if anything went wrong tonight, it would be the final nail in the coffin of his tenure.

  He closed his eyes, trying to think. The room was silent, save for one constant, quiet relentless noise, the Swiss clock on the wall.

  It ticked away mercilessly like a metronome.

  Or a bomb.

  The PM had seen the breaking news reporting a raid in North London earlier in the day, just around lunchtime. He’d spoken to Director Cobb, who’d confirmed that two of the nine suspects had been arrested and one of them killed. Thankfully however, none of the police officers were hurt; that was the most important thing, and the good news. The bad news was that the house hadn’t been on any list, or even on anyone’s radar. If it hadn’t been for sheer blind luck and an inquisitive, public-spirited old lady, they never would have known the three suspects were there.

  Every other raid conducted across the city by the other counter-terrorist and police teams had been unsuccessful. Every single one. Which meant six other members of the cell were still out there. And no one seemed to have any idea where any of them were.

  There was a knock at the door. He opened his eyes.

  ‘Come in.’

  The door opened, and a woman in her mid-thirties stepped inside. She was cradling a stack of folders in the crook of her arm, a warm smile on her face as she saw her husband. For a brief moment, the Prime Minister felt his mood lift. It was his wife, Jennifer. She closed the door behind her and moved towards him.

  ‘Pete gave me these to pass on to you,’ she said, placing the stack of folders on the desk beside the PM. ‘Reports from today.’

  He didn’t respond; she noticed him looking over at the clock.

  ‘Everything alright?’ she asked.

  He nodded and forced a smile, but it was half-hearted and unconvincing. She moved across in front of him, up close, reaching up to adjust his tie.

  ‘Look at the state of you,’ she chided. Pausing, she read her husband’s mind. ‘They won’t succeed, sweetheart. Our best men are out there right now, searching for them. And I hate to say it, but something like this was bound to happen at some point. It’s the way things are now. You know who we are. Our standing in the world. We’ll always have enemies.’

  He sighed, shaking his head.

  ‘Do we even know who this enemy is?’ he asked her. ‘Pete told me earlier that six of these men were born and bred right here in the UK. How is that possible? Are we doing something wrong? What happened along the way that they would even consider doing something like this?’

  ‘You can’t sit here and ponder their motives. You’ll drive yourself insane.’

  He nodded; he knew she was right. But he couldn’t shake his malaise. It almost felt as if all the errors and mistakes he’d made in the last three years were culminating tonight, like some gargantuan trial or test he had to pass.

  He bowed his head and sighed.

  ‘The people who've held this office before me led this country through its darkest times,’ he said quietly. ‘Endless conflicts. Two World Wars. The Falklands. The Gulf. Afghanistan. They knew who the opposition was. The soldiers knew where to stand their ground and fight the enemy. Mostly.’

  He paused.

  ‘But how do we fight these men? Where? Out there, on our streets? And what do I tell the country? That we're at war with ourselves?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘And how on earth do we stop an enemy who actually wants to die?’

  The last sentence stayed in the air. But rather than withdrawing, Jenny pierced his gaze, her soft demeanour hardening.

  ‘By granting his wish,’ she said, quietly.

  Silence.

  Suddenly, there was a hurried knock at the door; in almost the same instant, it was pushed open. It was Rogers. He looked pale, an expression on his normally amiable face that the PM hadn’t seen before. His wife saw it too.

  ‘Goodness, Pete, you look dreadful. Whatever is the matter?’ she asked.

  The Prime Minister stayed silent.

  He knew something terrible had just happened.

  Inside Room 418 of the Heathrow Marriott Hotel, Dominick Farha was standing by the window again, pushing back the curtain an inch with his fore-finger and scanning outside.

  On the bed behind him, his new companion was hard at work. The young woman had a white dress made of thick cotton laid across her lap. Beside her, the holdall containing the vast quantity of bricks of C4 explosive rested against a pillow.

  She lifted a brick from the bag and slid it into a compartment sewn into the gown. It was a perfect fit, snug and secure. Beside it, five other bricks had already been tucked into the glove-like pockets. She raised the dress in front of her, testing the weight, lifting the garment up and down.

  She smiled.

  ‘It worked. It holds.’

  Farha turned. ‘Good. Keep going.’

  He saw her smile up at him.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ he added, as an afterthought.

  That had the desired effect and she returned to her work with renewed passion, desperate to please him. Dominick watched her, keeping his thoughts to himself.

  He’d met her a few months ago in a book shop in the city. He’d been trying to find a manual on home-made explosives and had found one under Science, written by a guy named Stoffel. The girl had been standing a few feet away from him in the same aisle. He’d sensed she was checking him out and he decided on a whim to strike up a conversation with her. The conversation progressed to coffee, and soon they were meeting up repeatedly during the next few weeks.

  At the time Dominick had been in the midst of identifying and persuading willing recruits play an active part in his suicide bombing plan, but was finding the long drawn-out process frustrating and tedious. Convincing them wasn’t the hard part; he’d always possessed a certain amount of charisma, able to turn on the charm whenever he needed, and could almost always get people to do what he wanted. Finding a sufficient number of the bombers was the issue.

  During that scouting phase he’d been playing along with the girl and feigning interest, more as a way of alleviating the crushing boredom than anything else. She’d fallen for him hard which was irritating, making him feel like a rock with a limpet attached.

  But then he’d had an idea.

  He got her drunk one night, then after they slept together, he brought up the real reason why he was in the UK. He’d watched her response closely; if she reacted badly, he had a pillow ready to suffocate her. But she’d been interested. He’d adlibbed his way through the next part, and was amazed how well it worked. He outlined a plan, and she agreed to it the next
day, without a query. He realised she was so infatuated, she’d do anything he wanted. All he had to do was tell her he loved her every now and then, and she was like putty in his hands.

  Looking down, he saw her continuing her work.

  He couldn’t remember her name.

  But suddenly, he remembered something else. He checked his watch.

  ‘Oh shit.’

  Moving from the window, he grabbed the remote control from the bed and flicked on the television. Seeing as he’d been watching it earlier, the first channel that came up was the news.

  However, they were no longer showing footage from the house raid.

  The shot was now inside the studio, two concerned-looking newsreaders staring grimly into the camera, their mouths moving in silence on the muted TV as they talked to the nation.

  A new bulletin was running across the bottom of the screen.

  Breaking News: Explosion at Emirates Stadium, hundreds feared dead.

  Farha froze.

  He felt a shiver of excitement.

  He did it.

  Holy shit, he did it.

  He’d been worried that the guy would never make it inside the stadium, that he’d get stopped at the entrance. But he’d made it.

  Turning to the young woman whose name he couldn’t remember, Farha grinned.

  ‘It’s begun.’

  Across the city, another man was watching that same news report.

  He was standing outside a bar in a shopping centre in Angel, North London. Ahead of him, the pub was quickly filling up, partygoers and revellers, all of them having a good time and getting an early start in to the New Year celebrations.

  The man however, was all alone, with no friends around him.

  Taking a sip of the soft drink he’d just ordered, he paid no attention to the festivities inside the pub. He was only interested in the series of televisions mounted behind the bar, thirty feet away.

  A news report had just flashed onto the screen. The volume was off, so most of the people inside hadn’t noticed it yet, but gradually they each started to pause mid-conversation, attention turning to the television monitors.

  The man glanced at his watch.

  5:50pm.

  Give it ten minutes, then leave.

  Glancing down, he checked something else. Two black holdalls were resting by his feet. Each one was packed full and weighing close to forty pounds, zipped up tight and seemingly innocuous.

  In ten minutes, the man would finish his drink and get the hell out of there.

  The bags, however, were staying behind.