Timebomb

by Timebomb (retail) (epub)

  Despite the wet-suit, the water was biting cold, and already his fingers were feeling numb. Treading water, and keeping his head as low as possible to avoid being seen, he began flexing them to restore the blood flow. But all the time he kept his eyes fixed firmly on the approaching craft.

  Richter’s assumption was right. Morschel had indeed programmed the automatic pilot to follow a series of way-points linked by straight lines, but he’d included more way-points than he needed, so as to keep the boat moving in the right direction, but not holding any single course for too long. Most small-boat skippers were not that competent, and so, for the sake of appearances, having a five- or ten-degree change of course every now and again seemed a good idea.

  The GPS unit interrogated eleven satellites to confirm the unit’s precise position on the surface of the globe, and then noted that it had just reached another way-point. Accordingly, it immediately sent a new instruction to the autopilot, which responded by turning the wheel anti-clockwise. Within a few seconds, the boat’s course had veered about five degrees to port.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Monday

  Rochester, Kent

  Hans Morschel steered the stolen powerboat back through the marina entrance and both men scanned the pontoons, looking for trouble, but saw nothing to give them cause for concern. A couple of men were standing on their boats, tinkering with various bits of equipment, and another two were busy cleaning the decks of other vessels. Nothing in the marina looked out of place.

  ‘OK, Ernst, I think we’re clear. Get ready with the ropes.’

  Hagen climbed out of the cockpit, stepped forward to the bow, picked up a rope and stood waiting.

  Morschel brought the boat alongside the pontoon opposite its original berth, turned it through one hundred and eighty degrees and used the engine and rudder to expertly manoeuvre the vessel. A couple of minutes later, Hagen stepped onto the pontoon, looped the mooring rope over a small bollard, then jogged towards the stern of the boat and repeated the operation.

  Morschel removed the wires from the inspection hatch on the side of the control panel and the engine spluttered into silence. He replaced the metal plate, handed Hagen the zipped bag holding their personal weapons, quickly checked that they’d left nothing behind in the cockpit and then himself climbed out of the cockpit.

  Together, Hagen and Morschel replaced the cover on the boat, then headed swiftly back towards the car park where they’d left the Mercedes.

  They were still walking along the pontoon when a Kent Police car swung through the gates of the marina and braked to a stop in front of its small office building. Two uniformed officers emerged from the vehicle, their heavy black waistcoats festooned with equipment. They glanced briefly around them, then knocked on the office door and entered.

  Medway, Kent

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Richter muttered, as he saw the bow of the target vessel moving gently away from him. Immediately, he started swimming as hard as he could, digging the fins powerfully into the water, ignoring the increasing pain from his injured thigh, and tracking through the waves at right angles to the course the boat was taking.

  He was on the starboard side of the vessel, which at least made him virtually invisible to the man in the cockpit, and was probably seventy yards away from it when he started swimming. The fact that he was comparatively close to the boat meant he didn’t have to cover much distance to again position himself on its course, but even swimming the thirty yards that was necessary proved very hard work. In the calm of a swimming pool it would have been an easy task, but it was a different story in the open ocean. When he finally stopped, he was panting from the effort.

  He span round in the water to face the approaching craft. Fortunately, he seemed to be more or less right in front of its bow again.

  When he estimated his distance from the boat was around twenty-five yards, Richter again turned round in the water and began swimming in the same direction the craft was heading, matching its course and picking the optimum method of getting on board. There were fenders along both sides, but no mooring ropes were visible, so the fenders would just have to do.

  The boat was now close enough for the noise of its engine to be clearly audible, and its course appeared unaltered. Richter speeded up and then, as the bow passed him, reached up and grabbed one of the fenders, wrapping his fingers around the rope that secured it to the deck cleat.

  The instant his fingers clamped around the rope, it felt like his arm was being pulled out of its socket. The strain on his muscles was immense, and he knew he would have to get on board as quickly as possible. With his other hand, he reached down to his feet and released the fins, because they would be of no more use to him, then dropped his mask. Holding firmly onto the fender rope with his right hand, he reached up with his left and seized one of the safety rail stanchions. Twice his fingers, numb with cold, slipped off the stainless steel, and all the time the strain on his right arm increased horrendously. He tried once again, and this time managed to get a firm grip on the rail.

  He released the rope, reached up and grabbed another stanchion. Then he began to ease himself on board, under the lowest guard rail, keeping absolutely flat on the foredeck.

  For a few seconds, Richter lay still, recovering his breath. Then he moved.

  SAR Sea King helicopter, callsign ‘Rescue 24’

  ‘Boss, he’s on the boat now. On the foredeck, starboard side, as planned.’

  ‘Roger that,’ the pilot replied. ‘Time for our little show.’

  He pulled the Sea King up into a hard turn, heading directly towards the boat, then continued to turn away, passing within about twenty yards of the vessel before opening to the south.

  Rochester, Kent

  Hagen stopped in mid-stride and half-turned away, but Morschel shook his head in warning and carried on walking. Half-way along the pontoon was a bench seat, and the two Germans stopped beside it. Morschel unzipped the bag he was carrying and reached inside it. Keeping his hands hidden in the bag, he checked that the two MP5s were resting on top of the ammunition and other stuff, then nodded to Hagen.

  ‘Only if we have to,’ he muttered, and then they walked on.

  Medway, Kent

  With the various manoeuvres the helicopter had been performing, Badri would have been less than human if he hadn’t turned round in the cockpit to watch it depart from the area. But as he turned back to the control panel a movement caught his eye, one that didn’t make immediate sense.

  Then he realized exactly what was happening, grabbed the Heckler & Koch from the bag beside him and swung it up. How the black-clad figure had managed to get on board he had no idea, but it would take him just seconds to eliminate the problem.

  Richter had briefly considered simply shooting the man with his Browning, but decided against it on the slim chance that he’d picked the wrong boat and the occupant of the cockpit was an innocent holiday-maker. So, instead, he’d decided to tackle him face-to-face.

  But the moment he pulled himself over the top of the cabin and dropped into the cockpit, he realized that was a mistake. The man reacted immediately, grabbing for something hidden in the open bag lying at his feet.

  Richter threw himself across the cockpit and slammed his left shoulder into the other man’s chest just as he raised the weapon, which Richter immediately recognized as a Heckler & Koch submachine-gun. That told him all he needed to know about the man he was now facing, and he also knew he had to get the gun away from him. At that close range, one burst from the MP5 would turn Richter into chopped liver.

  The force of his impact had forced Badri back against the stern rail, but he managed to keep his grip on the MP5. He swung the weapon round in a vicious arc that connected with the side of Richter’s head.

  For a second or two, he saw stars. Badri was big and strong and, if it hadn’t been for the thick neoprene hood Richter was wearing, that might have been the end of the fight. He shook his head to clear it, dashed aside Badri’s right arm with
his left, and slammed his right fist into the man’s solar plexus. Badri grunted, and then swung his head sharply forward, aiming to smash his forehead directly into Richter’s face. But the Englishman drew back just in time.

  As he moved away, Badri swung again with the Heckler & Koch, and the butt of the weapon connected sharply with Richter’s ribs. He ignored the sudden pain and delivered another punch to his opponent’s torso, then saw the Arab turning the MP5’s barrel towards him.

  Richter grabbed his opponent’s arm just above the wrist, stopping the upward movement of the submachine-gun, took a step forward and instantly turned so as to place his back to Badri’s chest. He altered his grip on the Arab’s right arm and pulled it forwards and downwards, simultaneously bending at the waist.

  The man literally flew over Richter’s bent back and crashed down onto the floor of the cockpit, driving the breath from his body. As he landed, Richter stepped forward and kicked out hard, catching Badri’s right arm about mid-way between wrist and elbow. With a howl of pain, the big man dropped the MP5 and clutched at his forearm. Richter jumped over him, scooped up the weapon, and quickly reversed it to aim at the recumbent figure.

  ‘The game’s over,’ Richter snapped.

  ‘It’s not a game,’ Badri panted, ‘and it’s not over.’

  He staggered to his feet, glanced across the cockpit at Richter, and then made a dash for the control panel.

  ‘It is now,’ Richter said grimly. He fired a three-round burst that tore into the Arab’s chest and smashed his body against the side of the cockpit. Then, for good measure, he fired a second burst into him.

  He put the weapon down on one of the seats, dragged Badri’s body over to one side and stepped across to the control panel. As he’d guessed, there was a GPS unit attached to the top of it, linked to an automatic pilot. That should be simple enough to deal with, but what worried him was what else he could see. It looked to him as if the cabin door was fitted with an anti-handling device, and there was a veritable maze of wires running around the cockpit, some vanishing through holes into the cabin itself.

  Given time, he could probably have worked out which wires did what, and disarmed or disabled the explosive charges, but time was one thing he hadn’t got. Richter peered over the cabin roof, and in the distance he could already see the tops of the masts of the Richard Montgomery. As if to reinforce the fact of this proximity, the wheel suddenly turned as the autopilot made its final heading correction and the bow of the boat swung round to point directly towards the masts.

  Richter studied the GPS unit. The distance still to go registered as a little over a mile and a half, and he was by no means convinced that the people who had wired this boat so comprehensively would have entrusted the detonation solely to the man now lying dead on the floor. There might well be a manual switch somewhere, but the primary ignition system would definitely use some kind of an automated trigger, probably based on the GPS.

  But there was no time to find it. The boat was travelling at around eight knots, he estimated, which meant that it would cover the remaining distance in about six minutes, maybe less if whoever had programmed the GPS hadn’t got the wreck’s position absolutely right.

  Somehow, he had to slow down the craft while he figured out the wiring. Richter instinctively reached out to grab the throttle, but immediately changed is mind. That, like all the other controls, was clearly protected by an explosive charge. If he tried to alter the setting, he would no doubt lose his hands. And he simply hadn’t anything like enough time to start dismantling the anti-handling devices. So that was a non-starter.

  He checked the GPS again. Just over a mile – and maybe five minutes – to go. If he couldn’t slow the vessel, the only alternative was somehow to steer it away from the wreck. But he couldn’t turn the wheel because it, too, was wired with explosive charges. Richter was standing helplessly in a boat full of Semtex, a boat that he could neither turn nor slow down, and that was fitted with an electronic trigger which might detonate the plastic explosive at almost any moment.

  Rochester, Kent

  Hagen and Morschel had just reached the end of the pontoon, and began heading over towards the car park, when the office door swung open. A tall, thin man wearing dark blue trousers and a blue sweater stepped out, the two police officers following him. He pointed down towards the pontoon while he explained something.

  The two Germans ignored the three men, not even giving them a glance, and continued walking. But then they heard a shout from behind.

  Morschel looked back to see the two policemen jogging towards them and, he noted immediately that each man was carrying not only a holstered pistol at his hip, but a Heckler & Koch MP5 slung across his chest, his right hand already cradling the pistol grip. Clearly the British authorities had managed to find out something of their intentions, and had successfully tracked them down.

  Morschel dodged quickly behind the first vehicle in the car park, dropped the bag and grabbed for one of the weapons it contained. Beside him, Hagen did exactly the same. The two men spun round, using the line of cars as cover, brought their submachine-guns up to waist height and opened fire.

  The two police officers were highly-trained in the use of firearms, had excellent scores on the training ranges and could field-strip and rebuild any of the weapons they were qualified to use well within the specified time. Unfortunately, the one area in which they’d never received any instruction was in street-fighting, whereas Morschel and Hagen, in contrast, were experts.

  The first bullets were screaming towards the two officers before they’d even properly aimed their weapons, and before either one of them had opened his mouth to issue the official challenge that the rule book required them to utter before opening fire.

  The MP5 is an assault weapon, and on all such arms speed of fire and reliability count for more than accuracy, but at that range – less than thirty yards – even the most incompetent of shooters can expect to hit a man-sized target. And Morschel and Hagen were far from incompetent. They fired off tightly-aimed bursts of three rounds, and almost half their bullets found their mark.

  The two police officers staggered to a halt as the nine-millimetre slugs tore into them, then they fell backwards almost simultaneously. Their Kevlar jackets protected their torsos, but one took a round in the shoulder and the other was hit twice in the thigh. It was all over in less than three seconds.

  As their weapons fell silent, Morschel and Hagen stood upright, looking across at the two fallen men and then jogged the rest of the way to the Mercedes. Hagen tossed the weapons and the bag on the back seat as Morschel started the engine, and with a sudden spurt of gravel the car powered out of the marina.

  Behind them, the silence was broken by the moans of pain of the two wounded men, then a series of high-pitched screams erupted from the office as one of the female secretaries rushed to the window to peer out.

  Medway, Kent

  For several seconds, Richter stood motionless in the cockpit, staring with increasing desperation at the rigged controls.

  As far as he could see, about his only option was to blow one of the anti-handling devices. With any luck, that would disrupt the firing circuit and prevent the main explosive charge from blowing. Or maybe it would blow the main charge, but still far enough away from the wreck that the half-century old munitions wouldn’t detonate. Unfortunately, in either case, he himself would be unlikely to survive.

  He was actually on the point of touching the charge fixed on the autopilot when he happened to glance again at the GPS. That was it, he suddenly realized. That was the only weak point in the system – the only component that Morschel hadn’t been able to safeguard with explosives.

  The Semtex that he was certain was somewhere in the boat itself would blow when the vessel’s location matched the coordinates stored in the GPS program. All he had to do was change that program, add a way-point that would force the autopilot to take the boat a long way round. A very long way round indeed.

&nb
sp; ‘Got you, you bastard,’ Richter muttered.

  He pressed the GPS menu button and a list of choices popped up on the screen. The third one was ‘Add way-point’. He tapped the screen and in that instant realized that Hans Morschel was both smarter and more thorough than he’d expected.

  As the screen cleared, a new dialogue box had appeared. In English, the text read: ‘Route protected. To alter destination or set a new way-point, insert password.’ Below that was a password-entry box, four blank spaces waiting to be filled.

  But Richter hadn’t got the slightest idea what the password might be.

  SAR Sea King helicopter, callsign ‘Rescue 24’

  After over-flying the target boat, the pilot had taken the helicopter up to about a thousand feet and began to follow it at a distance, the crew watching intently what happened below.

  ‘Why the hell doesn’t he turn the boat round, or slow it down?’ the pilot muttered. ‘The fucking thing’s nearly on top of the wreck.’

  ‘Maybe he can’t. Maybe the controls are locked, or something.’

  ‘If it’s going to blow, we need to get out of here, or at least grab some height. Take us up to two and a half, and then move over Sheppey itself.’

  Medway, Kent

  For a couple of seconds, Richter just stared at the screen of the GPS unit.

  ‘Fuck,’ he murmured, and stepped back from the control panel, rapidly assessing his options. He couldn’t slow the boat down or turn it. He couldn’t alter any of the controls, and even obvious weak points like the fuel supply and the engine mounts themselves had been protected by explosive charges. And the boat was getting closer to the wreck of the Richard Montgomery with every second that passed. He reckoned he now had maybe two minutes to do something before the main charge blew.