Blackout

by Chris Ryan

  Josh closed his eyes. The bullet was so close that he could almost feel it already, crashing through his skull, bursting through his brain, severing the membranes and nerves.

  Of all the different deaths I thought fate might have planned

  334

  for me, I never expected to be shot by a woman.

  A sound rang out through the empty town. A shot. Josh opened his eyes again. Kate's gun was lying on the floor, blasted out of her hands. A man was walking towards them, a pistol in his hand. He was wearing aviator shades, a cowboy hat on his head that shielded him from the sun, and a white scarf wrapped around his neck. The top two buttons on his blue linen shirt were undone, revealing some greying chest hair. And his walk had the steadiness of a man used to taking command.

  Josh didn't need to give the man a second glance. He'd learned to recognise him the way he might recognise his own shadow.

  Azim.

  Azim walked forwards steadily, emerging from the swirling clouds of black smoke that were still rising from the burnt out motorbikes behind them. Fifteen yards, then ten -- he was drawing steadily closer to them.

  'He's mine,' said Azim, indicating Josh with a brief nod.

  'You take him,-then,' said Kate.

  Azim raised his revolver and aimed. He squeezed the trigger. As he did so, Kate made a strange, wordless sound. Then she seemed about to speak -- but the blood was already foaming up through her mouth. It was spilling out across her cheeks, smearing her white skin. Her feet held steady for a second but then gave way, and her body collapsed onto the ground.

  Josh saw that the bullet struck her heart. She had been killed in an instant. Good shot, he thought. That woman's heart is a pretty small target.

  Azim raised his gun again. He fired once, then twice. The first bullet hit Flatner in the chest, the second pulped his right eye. Blood poured down the side of his face. The second bullet to hit him had blasted a hole clean through the centre of his skull. He tilted back on his heels, trying

  335

  to steady himself, then fell backwards to lie twitching briefly on the ground.

  Azim had fired four bullets, Josh realised. So there were two left in the chamber. And one of them has my name on it.

  Azim raised his gun again in a smooth arc and held it steady in his right hand. Its muzzle swung past Josh and Azim hesitated briefly, then aimed it directly at Porter's head. 'Hold it right there,' said Azim coldly 'I'm taking that software on behalf of the British Government. If you try to resist me, you're a dead man.'

  Josh had been tracking the movement of the gun. Now he was thinking, What kind of stunt is the bastard pulling?

  Porter was frozen, paralysed with fear. Kate was dead. Flatner was dead. His protection had been stripped away from him.

  Meekly, he picked up the laptop and handed it across to Azim. From his pocket, Azim took out a blank CDROM, slotted it into the machine, then looked back across to Josh.

  'You and I are working for the same team, Josh,' said Azim. 'As I told you earlier, I am not by nature a cruel man. There's no need for us to fight any more.'

  'The same team?' said Josh. 'What the bloody hell does that mean?'

  'It means you've been wrong all along,' said Azim. 'I'm a double agent, the highest-ranking British Intelligence mole inside al-Qaeda. I have been feeding information to The Firm.' A

  Suddenly, Josh began to understand. 'That's why they didn't finish you off in Afghanistan,' he said. 'That's why Bruton told me not to shoot you when the handover was being made with Ben and Luke.'

  'Exactly' said Azim. 'They have to protect me. I'm the best source they have.'

  'Why didn't they bloody tell me?' said Josh.

  336

  'Because you're just a cog in a big machine,' said Azim. 'They can't go around telling everyone I'm a double agent. I'd be dead within minutes. And they have to let the same monkeys who are chasing my colleagues chase me as well. After all, it would be suspicious if I was the only senior alQaeda man who wasn't being tracked by the British or the Americans.' He looked hard at Josh. 'You see, I'm one of the most important assets Western Intelligence has. Far more important than some ignorant squaddie.' He laughed. 'They can always get another solider.They can't find another agent like me.'

  'But you tortured me.You were going to kill me,' snapped Josh. 'I don't call that being on the same bloody side.'

  Azim smiled. 'But you'd left the team by then, Josh,' he said.'You'd disobeyed Bruton's direct order. We had no idea who you were working for any more. And the priority was to get hold of this software. Luke turned all the lights off in London. We couldn't let that happen again. I was just doing what I had to do. Anyway . . .' Azim took the CDROM from the machine and slipped it into his pocket. 'Now that we have the software, our mission is closed.'

  'So we destroy the computer?' said Josh.

  Azim aimed his gun and blasted the laptop. At such close range, the bullet shattered the machine, leaving splinters of plastic on the ground.

  'Luke's copy of the software is destroyed,' said Azim. 'It's finished. All we have to do now is execute Luke, then there will be no chance of him ever creating it again.'

  The Wildey was still lying on the ground. Josh leaned down to pick it up.

  'Not quite that simple,' he said and he raised the pistol, pointing it at Azim.

  'I've just saved your life, Josh.'

  Josh steadied his aim. His lips remained sealed, his expression focused.

  337

  'We're on the same team,' said Azim.

  It was the first time that Josh had heard even a hint of nervousness in the man's voice.

  'I'm on my own team.'

  Josh tightened his finger on the trigger. The Wildey recoiled in his grip as the bullet exploded from its barrel. Josh cocked the gun, then squeezed the trigger again. Two bullets, he told himself. When you want to make sure you never hear from a man again, you need to put at least two bullets into him.

  Azim crumpled to the floor.

  It's over. At last it's over, thought Josh.

  338

  EPILOGUE

  Monday, August 3rd. Afternoon.

  Mark Bruton sat at the centre of the table. He was wearing uniform, but his jacket had been slipped over the back of his chair. He was flanked on either side by two sombre faced men, both in their mid to late thirties, both with black hair. One had a blue suit and one a black suit. Both servedThe Firm as officers in the anti-terrorist unit, working the grey space between the Regiment and the intelligence services. Neither gave his name, nor would they at any point during the hearing. Ant and Dec, decided Josh. It was hard to tell them apart.

  'I want you to understand something, Harding,' said Bruton. 'This isn't a court martial. Not yet. But it's a full-scale disciplinary hearing. Anything you say here may be used against you if this does go to a court martial. Understood?'

  Josh glanced up at the officer. His expression, he reckoned, was one you only ever saw on the face of a Rupert: confident, self-righteous, and completely clueless. A 747 could land on his nose and he wouldn't bloody notice it.

  'Understood,' replied Josh, deliberately inserting a pause before the next word. 'Sir.'

  'And because this is a disciplinary hearing, you need to tell the truth,' continued Bruton. 'The complete truth, Harding. Otherwise things will get very nasty for you.'

  'Understood.' Another pause. 'Sir.'

  They were sitting in a concrete-walled room, sixteen

  339

  floors beneath The Firm's Vauxhall headquarters. Below the basement level, the building had a series of massively reinforced bunkers designed to survive a full-scale nuclear attack: the intelligence agencies had no intention of stopping work after such a strike. There was a series of offices, each with their own oxygen supply, designed to keep working during a biological attack. And beneath those were a layer of cells and interrogation rooms. Once you were thrown in there, even a nuclear strike wasn't going to get you out.

  Josh had b
een here for nine days already, kept in solitary confinement. After shooting Azim, he'd set Porter loose.The billionaire no longer interested him. Make your own way home, Josh had told him. He took the rented Mustang and drove back towards Los Angeles, stopping at a motel overnight to shower, shave, get a decent meal and have a good night's sleep.

  The next morning, while Luke disappeared quietly back to Boisdale,Josh had reported back to the consulate in LA. He had been arrested immediately. Kept overnight, he had been flown back to London on a military jet. Twelve hours in his own plane, realised Josh. Just the fuel for that trip wasn't going to leave much change out of twenty grand. It was rare that an organisation as notoriously mean as the Army treated its guests so lavishly. I must be going up in the world, he'd thought.

  As the plane touched down at RAF Northolt on Sunday morning, Josh was met by six military policemen and driven straight to Vauxhall. He was^taken down to a cell, and apart from the twice-daily serving of food pushed under his door that was it as far as human contact went: he heard nothing more about where he was, or how long he might be there.

  Maybe they've already thrown away the key, he decided bitterly as hours stretched into days.

  Now Ant said: 'You disobeyed an order. Why?'

  340

  Josh glanced up at the man. 'The order didn't make any sense.'

  Ant remained expressionless. Dec smiled, and looked at Josh. 'Now, now, Mr Harding. You're a soldier. A good one. You know very well that an order is an order. We can't start negotiating which we obey and which we don't.'

  'I know the rules,' said Josh. 'But when the security of the country is at stake, they don't apply any more.'

  'The security of the country?' said Ant. 'Azim was the best inside agent we've managed to get inside al-Qaeda yet. He helped us foil several planned atrocities in this country. And you shot him.'

  'I did my job,' said Josh.

  'Your job is to obey orders,' said Ant.

  'My job is to serve my country,' said Josh. 'And protect it.'

  There was a silence. Josh could see the anger in all six eyes glazing at him. If the rules allowed it, they'd probably shoot me on the spot, he mused.

  'Tell us what happened,' said Dec.

  Josh knew that there was no point. There had already been a full written debrief describing the mission. There was nothing else to add. 'You already know.'

  'Then tell us why you shot him,' said Ant.

  'It was revenge, wasn't it?' interrupted Bruton. 'You were just angry at him for beating you. He pissed you off. So you shot him.'

  He looked savagely at Josh. 'Admit it, Harding. You're out of bloody control. You're not a soldier, just a bloody pub brawler. We don't need your kind.'

  Both Ant and Dec glanced across at Bruton: they were silently telling him to keep his temper, but they were not disagreeing with anything that he'd said.

  'If you can't explain yourself better than that, then it will be the duty of this hearing to recommend a full court martial,' said Dec stiffly. 'We'll have no other choice.'

  341

  Josh pulled a disk from his pocket: a single CDROM, green on one side, silver on the other. He stepped up from his chair, placing the disk on the desk. 'First take a look at this,' he said.

  There was silence from all three men as they looked down at the disk. 'What is it?' asked Ant.

  'Azim destroyed the computer that Luke had written the program on,' said Josh. He was standing up, looking down at all three men.'He wanted us to believe that he'd destroyed the program that was causing all the blackouts. Before he did so, he took a copy on this disk. Now, why did he do that? So he could take it back to his al-Qaeda mates.'

  'Meaning what?' said Bruton.

  'Meaning that he was a triple agent,' snapped Josh. 'He fed you some information to make you think that you'd turned him but he was loyal to his movement. He had you guys protecting him every step of the way. That's why alQaeda sent him to get the software. They knew that you'd help Azim to get his hands on it.

  'It was only because of me that we stopped him,' he continued, his tone turning intense. 'If it had been up to you lot, al-Qaeda would have had Luke's software by now. And the lights would be popping off all over the world every time the boys with towels on their heads felt like giving us a bit of a slapping.'

  Josh paused, turning around. His face was reddening with anger as his blood pumped furiously through his veins. 'Like I said, I was just doing my job. Protecting my country.' He smiled. 'Now you do yours. If that means courtmartialling me, so be it. If it means giving me a medal, so be it. I don't bloody care any more.'

  He stopped, the last words left hanging in the air. He could see both Ant and Dec looking nervously at one another: this wasn't going to look good in their reports. Dec took the disk carefully in his hands. 'We'll examine

  342

  this. If it's what you say it is, then I suppose that changes things.'

  'And what do you want me to do?' said Josh. He paused again. 'Sir.'

  'Go back to Hereford, Harding,' said Bruton. 'They can do what they like with you. I don't sodding care what happens to you.'

  Josh could feel the breeze blowing off the Thames as he walked over Vauxhall Bridge. He paused to look down at the water streaming beneath him. It's all under the bridge, he told himself. Let it stay that way.

  Darkness had already fallen. In the few days he'd been kept at The Firm, his sense of time had been shot to pieces. His nervous system was still recovering from the battering he'd taken over in America. When he got back to base, he'd need a full medical, but he already had some sense of the damage that he'd taken. The electric shocks had left him jittery, and there was still some swelling in his chest from where the snakes- had chewed him. The wounds to his leg and his neck were still painful. But I can still walk, he told himself. For now, that's enough.

  It was a clear night, and the rush-hour traffic was just starting to thin out. Off to the right he could see the lights of Big Ben playing across the waters of the Thames, on the other side of the river the lights on the London Eye slowly turning. Further out, a gentle electric haze stretched out to Canary Wharf and beyojnd.

  In a couple of days, he'd be back with the Regiment. He'd see how he felt once he was back with his mates. Maybe it was time to move on. All he wanted to do now was to get back to Emily, check that she was okay, then start to get himself back in shape.

  Josh looked down again at the water. Suddenly, the lights vanished.

  343

  It took a moment for him to react. He'd noticed the reflection of the Parliament building disappearing. Josh looked up. Everything had suddenly gone black. Christ, did something fuse? he wondered. Next he looked towards the London Eye. It had stopped moving, its capsules plunged into darkness.

  A blackout, thought Josh. Another blackout.

  He looked around. Yes, the whole city had been plunged into darkness. Across the bridge the lights were out. The cars were starting to back up across the bridge, and a few yards away he could hear the screeching of tyres and the honking of horns as the vehicles tried to get around the corner without any traffic lights. Nearby, he heard a woman screaming. A couple of hundred yards away, a police siren started to whine into life. All around, people were running.

  Josh glanced back towards The Firm's building, the so called Vauxhall Gaumont. Even there the power had shut down.

  'That will teach them not to mess with my man,' said a voice.

  Josh spun around.

  'Luke,'he shouted.'Luke? Where are you, you little bastard?'

  His eyes scanned the crowd on the bridge. People were starting to run. He could hear a woman yelling that someone had stolen her handbag, then a father shouting for his little boy.

  A pale figure suddenly stepped out of the shadows. Luke was dressed in jeans and sweatshirt, with a hood pulled down partly obscuring his face. His hands were stuffed into his pockets, and there was a black canvas rucksack slung over his shoulder.

  He looked up a
t Josh. 'That's some blackout, man,' he said, grinning.

  'Christ, what have you done?' snapped Josh. 'Turn the lights back on.'

  344

  'Are they treating you okay?' said Luke. 'Because if they're not, I'm going to make them pay.'

  'No worse than usual,' said Josh. 'How the hell did you know where I was?'

  'It took a bit of time,' Luke admitted. 'After I got back to my mum, we banked all that money we got from Porter Bell, then I figured we had to make sure that you were okay. So we decided we'd both come to London. I always wanted to see that place on the cover of the first Clash album. And she wanted to see Abbey Road.'

  'Your mum is here?'

  'Well, she's in the hotel. Probably gone out to score some dope by now.' Luke grinned. 'Anyway, it took me a few hours to hack into your outfit's system. They've got some pretty good firewalls in place. But I got through. Found out they were keeping you there, then that you were being thrown out today. So I figured that if I just waited here for a bit, I'd see you soon enough. Even in the darkness.'

  'You kept a copy of the software, didn't you?'

  'Well, you never know when you might need it. I reckoned that if they started messing about I'd just get in touch and tell them that I'd keep shutting their country down until they let you out.'

  'Well, I'm out,' said Josh firmly. 'So turn the bloody power back on. Before they send the Army out to get us.'

  Luke sighed. 'I kind of like it in the dark,' he said. 'It doesn't matter who you are, what you look like or how much money you have. In a blackout we're all the same. Equal.'

  Josh stepped forwards. 'Just turn it back on.'

  From his pocket, Luke pulled out a PDA. He pressed a button, then fired a signal. Standing next to Josh, he leaned over the side of Vauxhall Bridge. Behind them he could hear the wail of sirens, and the sound of some police officers starting to order people to move along.

  345

  'Let there be light,' said Luke.

  Up above, Josh could see the lights suddenly flooding across the city. Big Ben burst into life, and the London Eye started turning again. Cars screeched to a halt as traffic lights all across London turned red simultaneously.