Soft Target (Major Crimes Unit Book 2)

by Wright, Iain Rob

  “My father locked my mother and me inside, and then went to talk sense into our neighbours and friends who had known him for years. I do not know what my father said to them. All I know is that they beat my father into a coma and set fire to our farm. I saw it all. Later that night they beat me, too, and took my mother to the bedroom where she screamed all night.”

  Sarah swallowed. Her stomach hurt hearing Palu’s tale of misery and injustice.

  Palu finished his story, seeming unmoved by it, as if he had replayed it a hundred times in his head. “My father died in hospital a week later. Our farm was purchased by our neighbours for practically nothing. I was sent to Britain to live with my uncle. Two years later I was due to return to India, but I received news that my mother had killed herself. I had not seen her since the night the mob had come for us.

  “So you see, Ashley, you are not the only one who feels betrayed and angry. I watched my neighbors destroy my home and family, while my Government did nothing to stop it. The men responsible were never punished. My blood boils at the thought of it, but I have not repeated the cycle of violence. I have not allowed my anger to manifest and spread. I chose a different path. Ashley, you need to choose a different path, too. Help us ensure there are no more attacks. Innocent people get hurt when you sow hatred, and it needs to stop. Do you understand?”

  “I can’t help you. It’s too late.”

  “What do you mean?” Sarah asked.

  Ashley cleared her throat and looked at them all like they were idiots. “This is more than just a few suicide vests. This whole country is going to come crumbling down. By the end of this, there will be no more United Kingdom.”

  “Please explain,” Palu said. From the way Ashley looked at him, it was clear he had her respect more than anybody else in the room. “Is this because of a man named Wazir Hesbani? Do you know where he is? How do you know Dr Cartwright?”

  Ashley chuckled. “Cartwright? My dad hired the chubby fool after my brother died. Hesbani reached out to us through him.”

  “Where is Hesbani now?” Sarah demanded.

  He is everywhere. Don’t you feel him? His shadow is looming over this country like a plague. Before this is over, people will be too afraid to leave their homes. They’ll forget about their cars, their jobs, their gluttonous shopping sprees. People will finally be reminded of what matters, what is truly valuable: life. People need to respect life before we have any hope of changing.”

  Sarah folded her arms. The girl sounded just like Al-Sharir. They still didn’t know if the man was involved in this. “And you think the way to make people respect life is through violence? Don’t you find that a little hypocritical? I think your whole argument falls apart when you get to the indiscriminate killing part.”

  “Sometimes death is the only way to ensure life. What time is it?”

  Sarah shook her head in disgust. “Why are you involved in this, Ashley? What did your mother and father die for? This can’t all be because the Government bulldozed your house and moved your brother’s body.”

  Ashley’s face crinkled up in anger. “You’re damn right it’s not. Taking the home where I grew up, where my little brother played before he died, was just the first thing they did to us. I asked what time it is.”

  Sarah checked her watch irritably. “It’s 12:30PM. What do you mean? What did the Government do to you?”

  “When my dad put up a fight and started a petition to stop the HS2 link, the government blacklisted his construction company. All of a sudden, my father lost all of his civil contracts. No more new-build homes, no more municipal structures, no more maintenance contracts. Suddenly the taxman wanted to investigate his every movement, too. They ground my father’s business to a halt with red tape – his livelihood of more than thirty years gone almost overnight. If the Government are willing to do that to a hardworking, law-abiding family man, they’ve lost their right to be in charge.”

  “Looked like you were doing alright to me,” Howard said. “Your new home was a pretty nice place to live. Did you buy it with the fair settlement you got from the Government?”

  “Fair settlement? Are you kidding? We got half what the house was worth. They screwed the figures and valued it based on what it cost my dad to build it thirty years ago. It was nowhere near what the house was worth on the current market. The house we moved to is rented. My father’s company is due to go bankrupt within the month. They took everything from us, just so people can get to London a few minutes faster on the train. Business and shopping; that’s what my family’s entire life was destroyed for.”

  Ashley’s sob story didn’t excuse what she’d done. “Where is Hesbani?” Sarah demanded again. “I heard his goddamn voice on your father’s answering machine, so don’t lie to me. Where do I find him?”

  “He’ll find you. What you people need to worry about now is the next suicide bomb. There’s going to be an explosion in less than two hours.”

  “Where?” Palu asked, still perching on the bed. “Ashley, this is important. This is your chance to undo some of what you’ve done. We can help you, if you help us.”

  Ashley looked as if she were about to cry, but then she surprised them all by laughing hysterically. “I don’t want to help you. I want you all to burn.”

  Palu’s caring demeanour disappeared. He stood from the bed, turned his back on Ashley, and straightened his tie. Then he spun around and smashed his fist down on the bed sheets, right where Ashley’s wounded foot lay.

  Ashley bellowed.

  Palu ripped off the sheets and grabbed the girl’s wounded hand. He squeezed. “Tell me where the next target is!”

  Ashley screamed.

  Dr Bennett gasped. “Director Palu!”

  “What is the next target? Tell me, or I’ll start taking fingers.”

  Ashley wailed in agony. Palu slapped her, then gave her a chance to speak.

  “T-the answering machine. It’s… it’s orders for the next target.”

  Palu eased up. “What do you mean? Sarah, what did you say about an answer message?”

  Sarah thought back. “It was Hesbani. He said that two freedom fighters had been killed in Syria by the British.”

  “What does it mean?” Palu demanded of Ashley.

  “It’s an eye for an eye,” said Bradley. “In the second videotape, Hesbani warned that for every life taken on foreign soil, we would lose just as many back home.”

  “What does that tell us?” Howard asked. “Two freedom fighters are going to be killed in the UK?”

  “Law enforcement,” Sarah said. “They’re going to hit our police officers.”

  Ashley grinned. “Tick tock, bitches.”

  Sarah struck Ashely with a backhand blow. Blood trickled from the corner of the girl’s mouth, but she continued grinning. Sarah pulled the SIG from her waistband and pressed it against Ashley’s forehead. “Tick tock, bitch. Three seconds ‘till I smear your brains on the pillow. Where is the bomb?”

  Ashley closed her eyes and waited. Three seconds passed and Sarah didn’t pull the trigger. The bluff hadn’t worked. Ashley was prepared to die. Sarah lowered her weapon and sighed. “There’s nothing left in you but hate, is there?”

  Ashley opened her eyes slowly. “You want to kill me, then do it. I’ll never help you, and you’ll never stop Hesbani. His plan is too far in motion. I set the latest bomb myself. You’ll never find it.”

  Sarah put her gun away and wiped the sweat from her forehead. The group moved far enough away from Ashley that they could speak in private. “We need to go back to the Foster’s residence. If Ashley made the bomb herself, that might be where she did it.”

  Howard agreed. “Especially if it was recently. We found her hiding out there this morning. Come on, let’s go.”

  “You sure you can manage with the arm?” Sarah asked.

  Howard held up his cast. “You can sign it once we stop Hesbani.”

  “Deal.”

  “Okay,” Palu said. “Sarah, Howard, get
back to the Foster’s home. I’ll have Mattock meet you there.”

  “What about Mandy?” Howard said.

  “Mattock will leave one of his men at the hospital. I’ll keep working the leads, try to figure out where the likeliest target will be.” Palu pointed a finger at Ashley. “Bradley, you and Dr Bennet stay here and get what you can from her.”

  Everyone agreed on the plan and got going. Before Sarah left the room, Ashley grinned and said, “Tick tock, tick tock.”

  JACK IN THE BOX

  Despite Sarah breaking every speed limit on the way to the Foster’s home, Mattock was still there before her and Howard. His Range Rover, identical to the ones back at MCU, was parked up on the curb waiting for them.

  Mattock joined them on the driveway once they were ready. “Neighbours have eyes on us,” he said.

  “They were woken by gunshots this morning. I’m not surprised,” Howard said.

  Sarah nodded at the police tape across the property’s front door. “Are the police still here?”

  Mattock stared up the driveway. “No, I had them called off for a couple hours.”

  Sarah raised an eyebrow. “We can do that?”

  “Not often, but we have some clout when we need it. We get authorisation through the Home Office directly.”

  Sarah and Howard followed Mattock inside the house. Leanne Foster’s body had been removed, but her blood remained on the tiles and spattered the kitchen cupboards. Sarah felt sick by the sight of it.

  “What are we looking for?” Mattock asked, unaffected by the scene.

  Sarah opened drawers, looking for paperwork, IDs, anything. “There’s another suicide bomb and it’s going to go off soon. Ashley isn’t talking, so we need to figure this out ourselves. We’re searching for clues, anything that might tell us who or what’s involved.”

  Mattock clenched his jaw. “Bleeding nutcases, the lot of ‘em. Ain’t never seen anything like this, normal families turning to terrorism.”

  “We can figure out the whys later,” Howard said. “We need to turn this place over quickly.”

  Mattock nodded. “I’ll check upstairs.”

  Sarah and Howard took the back of the house first. The kitchen and study were a bust. That left the lounge and dining room at the front of the house.

  Howard checked the dining room while Sarah took the lounge. Each wall held multiple pictures of the Fosters holding hands, hugging, and otherwise posing for the camera. They looked happy. Sarah also noticed that the home in most of the pictures was not the one she was standing in. A picture on a side table showed a quaint, extended cottage with timber beams and white walls. It had a double garage and a giant front lawn. On the front lawn was a bouncy castle with a grinning infant that must have been Ashley’s brother.

  Other than the photographs, the living room was bare and fashionable, with few knickknacks or surfaces to accumulate dust. An LCD television hung on the wall in front of a leather sofa that had two small tables on either side.

  There was a chest of drawers against the back wall, which was the only place left to search, but before Sarah got chance, Mattock rushed into the room looking concerned. “You need to see this,” he said.

  Sarah grabbed Howard and they went upstairs, following after Mattock. “I think it’s the girl’s room,” he told them. “It’s a mess.”

  Sarah walked into Ashley’s bedroom and the coppery smell of blood hit her immediately. There was too much of it to all belong to Dr Cartwright, who was slumped against the far wall beside the bed. A bullet hole marked his temple.

  Howard knelt in front of the body. “Why did they take out the doc after having rescued him?”

  “Maybe he had cold feet after what happened at the clinic,” Sarah suggested. “He seemed to have doubts about what they were doing. Maybe his conscience finally kicked in.”

  Mattock nodded to the bed. “Or maybe Ashley had one last job for Cartwright before he became expendable.”

  Ashley’s double bed was caked with dried blood. Crumpled towels and bowls of bloody water sat on the bedside tables. At the foot of the bed was an open medical kit.

  “Cartwright was a surgeon before he was a therapist,” Sarah noted.

  “He must have fixed Ashley’s wounds after the shootout,” Howard said. “Bradley shot her.”

  Sarah shook her head. “No, this is more than that. There’s too much blood for just a hand wound.”

  “What are you thinking?” Mattock asked.

  “I’m not sure yet.” Sarah knelt over the medical kit and started rooting through the contents. There were bandages and gauze, as well as a bloody scalpel and sutures. There was also an empty vial of iodine. The strangest things inside the bag was an empty box of condoms.

  “What have you got?” Howard asked.

  Sarah sighed and tried to make sense of things. “I think Cartwright cut Ashley open.”

  Howard frowned. “But why?”

  Mattock picked up a coil of bloodstained electrical wire from the windowsill. “I think maybe this has something to do with it.”

  Sarah’s stomach ached as she finally placed it all together. “It’s inside of her! Dr Cartwright cut Ashley open and placed a goddamn bomb inside of her.”

  “No way,” Howard said.

  “Sounds a bit far-fetched, luv,” Mattock agreed.

  But Sarah was certain. “Ashley must’ve killed the doctor after he was through, making sure he wouldn’t get a chance to feel guilty and talk. They rigged a bomb together, something small and compact like C4, and then Ashley wrapped it in condoms while Cartwright inserted it in her. Ashley is the suicide bomber, I’m certain of it.”

  Sarah leapt to her feet and yanked out her mob-sat. “Palu? Ashley is the suicide bomber. The bomb is inside her. You need to—”

  Sarah’s mouth dropped open and the mob-sat slipped from her grasp, landing amongst the bloody bandages on the floor.

  Mattock and Howard stared at her, waiting for her to speak.

  “We need to get back,” she said. “I think the Earthworm just exploded.”

  SPINNING TOP

  Howard called MCU a dozen times on the frantic trip back to the Earthworm. Sarah and Mattock both drove 120mph down the dual carriageway, Range Rover following Jaguar. Several times Sarah thought she might crash, but she couldn’t slow down. Not until she reached the Earthworm and saw things for herself.

  As soon as they reached the derelict farm, Sarah knew the worst had happened. A flume of black smoke billowed from the middle of the open field, coming from some burning structure beneath the ground.

  Howard opened up the concealed entrance and they all beat it down the steps as fast as they could. Nobody one spoke; the anticipation was too much to put into words.

  As they reached the lower steps, they heard the blood-curdling siren.

  “It’s the evacuation alarm,” Howard shouted over the din. He entered the entry code for the hatch into the tail section.

  Inside, the only light was coming from the red strobe lights of the alarm system and the strip lighting that illuminated the floor. They sprinted through the large unused tail section and made it over to the other side, fearful of what they would find. As soon as Howard opened the next hatch, the epicentre of destruction became clear.

  The smoke billowed out at them in angry clouds. Sarah covered her mouth and tried not to choke on it. Mattock unclipped something from his belt and threw it into the hallway. It was a glow stick and, as it snapped to life, it bathed everything in a soft green glow.

  Howard shouted into the smoke. There was a weak reply somewhere off down the hallway. Sarah didn’t hang around and took off into the black haze.

  It was impossible to see, and she was forced to feel her way along the wall, using the yelping voice as a guide. “Palu? Is that you? Where are you?”

  “I’m here,” the director moaned. “Keep moving forward.”

  Sarah found Palu slumped in the hallway, caked in soot and breathing into his scrunched up tie.
Blood poured from a thick gash on his forehead, but he otherwise looked okay.

  Sarah knelt in front of him. “You okay?”

  “I don’t know what happened.”

  “The bomb was inside Ashley. She was the next suicide bomber. We were the freedom fighters she meant to hit.”

  “You mean they planned this all along?”

  Sarah shrugged. “I don’t know. Dr Cartwright sowed the bomb inside of her and he’s dead.”

  Palu started dragging himself up off the floor, but winced and slid back down. “Then we have nothing. All our leads are gone.”

  Sarah put an arm around the man’s waist and managed to help him to his feet. Soon, she was joined by Howard and Mattock, who quickly helped her get out of the smoke and back into the tail section. There, they dumped Palu down in one of the dusty seats and took a moment to clear their throats.

  “Palu?” Howard said. “I’m glad you’re okay. Where are Bradley and Dr Bennett?”

  “They were in the infirmary with Ashley.”

  “We need to go back,” Sarah said.

  Palu shook his head. “You need to wait for the smoke to clear. The sprinklers kicked in and dealt with the fire, but it’s going to take a while for the extractors to clear the air.”

  Sarah flopped down on a chair and let her chin fall to her chest. “This just keeps getting worse.”

  They all waited until the smoke cleared enough to tolerate.

  Then Sarah, Howard, and Mattock sprinted down the hallway towards the infirmary, choking on what was left of the smoky air. Palu stayed behind, still catching his breath.

  At the infirmary, they were met by a smattering of dying fires. Ceiling sprinklers had kept the flames contained, but the damage from the blast had gone completely unanswered.