Osama

by Chris Ryan

  It was a small tray, about eight inches by four, wrapped in a cardboard sleeve that was emblazoned with the British Airways logo. Eva picked it up. It was heavier than she expected for an airline meal, but that was what it must be – food. She noticed that, despite not being chilled, it had no smell. Eva stared at it, barely daring to slide the tray out of its paper sleeve. What would Ashkani be doing with an airline meal in a remote safe house?

  Her mouth was dry, her limbs heavy. She removed the sleeve. The food tray had a foil lid, crimped around the edges, though it was clear that even if the tray had once been factory sealed, someone had opened it. She pulled the foil off.

  She almost dropped it with shock.

  The tray was divided into compartments: one for the main meal, one for dessert, another for cheese. None of them contained food. The two larger compartments had been filled with a substance resembling bright orange plasticine. Each had a small metal probe attached to a red wire that snaked into the third compartment, where two AA batteries were nestled in a battery pack.

  Eva swallowed hard, then laid the tray gently back on top of the ammunition.

  She stared at it.

  Then she looked up at Conor, who was still lying on his side.

  She heard Joe’s voice: ‘Maybe the fucking pilots are involved . . . or the baggage handlers . . .’

  Or the catering staff.

  ‘If some fucker wants to blow themselves up . . .’

  Unless you know how they’re going to do it. And suddenly, Eva realized, she did.

  0915 hours.

  The wind on the Second Severn Crossing buffeted Joe. But he neither reduced his speed, nor looked left or right at the mist-shrouded expanse of the estuary around him. If the police stopped him, it would be a fucking disaster. But if he slowed down it would be disastrous too. He had no choice but to push on at full throttle.

  The moment he’d cleared the estuary, he turned off the M4 and headed south. Time check: 0926. Thirty-four minutes to go. His fuel level was low. Fuck! There was no time stop. He screamed past an Asda van and was rewarded with a deafening klaxon and, he saw in his side mirror, a wanker sign from the driver.

  A sign overhead: Bristol International Airport, ten miles.

  At his current speed that would take between seven and eight minutes.

  He looked up. A helicopter had appeared in the sky. He knew its shape: an Agusta A109, the aircraft on constant standby at Hereford. Joe estimated that it was two miles ahead. Was it the Regiment? Some other agency?

  Could he have been spotted?

  He pushed away the thought and sped on.

  Eva switched on her phone. She didn’t really expect to get a signal, but she moved closer to the window, holding the handset up against the pane, hoping she might just pick up one in this remote place.

  Nothing.

  ‘Conor,’ she whispered, doing everything she could to keep her panic under control. ‘Conor, you have to listen to me.’ She gently shook his shoulder. He just stared into space. Then he blinked, but nothing more.

  ‘I have to leave you here, sweetheart . . . you’ll be OK. Just . . . just wait for me to come back. I’ll be quick, I promise . . .’

  If he understood what she was telling him, he gave no sign of it. Eva rearranged the coat over him once more – she didn’t know what else to do. She limped towards the door, gave a final look over her shoulder, then closed it behind her and struggled down the stairs and outside.

  It was cold. She should have put on the old woman’s coat but she didn’t dare return for it. She stared at the screen of her phone. Ten past nine: fifty minutes to find a signal and somehow raise the alarm. She’d barely struggled twenty metres, past the boundary fence and onto the road, before the piercing agony of her wound made tears streak down her cheeks. She fixed her eyes on the phone, muttering prayers under her breath that the service bars would spring into view.

  She couldn’t think about the pain. All she could think about was the little tray packed with explosive, her mind full of images of metal trolleys being pushed down the aisles of airplanes in flight, and of hunks of metal plummeting from the sky. She limped and winced, and occasionally groaned. But she kept on walking, as fast as she could.

  0430 hours EST.

  The departures lounge at Tampa International Airport was not busy. At this time of the morning there were only two kinds of passengers: professionals, whose jobs dictated they should book themselves onto the ‘red-eyes’ in order to make their meetings in distant parts of the country, and those whose circumstances dictated that they take advantage of the cheaper fares of these early-morning flights.

  For these passengers there were only a handful of distractions. A single coffee shop was open, and it was here that some forty bleary-eyed travellers had congregated, trying to perk themselves up with shots of espresso. Opposite, a clothes store selling gaudy swimming shorts and tropical shirts already had Katy Perry booming from its ceiling despite the early hour. It was brightly lit and staffed by a young woman with three nose piercings, but was otherwise empty. The neighbouring drugstore was quieter, and only fractionally busier. A middle-aged businessman was buying toothpaste and roll-on deodorant. Behind him, a short, rather dumpy young woman with Middle Eastern looks carried a wire basket containing mouthwash, sanitary pads and two bottles of shampoo.

  She paid for her items using cash, stowed them in her plain brown shoulder bag, then stepped out onto the concourse and looked up at the departures board. Her eyes scanned down the list of flights until she found hers. Flight number: AA346. Destination: New York JFK. Time: 0500. Gate: 24. Status: boarding in twenty-five minutes.

  There was a line of ten plastic yellow chairs in the middle of the concourse facing the coffee shop. She took a seat here and placed her shoulder bag next to her, waiting patiently for her flight to be called. Her eyes caught those of an older man sitting at the edge of the coffee shop’s seating area. He had a bottle of mineral water in front of him, but he wasn’t drinking it. He broke their gaze as soon as it connected. Ten seconds later a voice came over the Tannoy: ‘This is an announcement for all passengers travelling to New York JFK on flight number AA346. The gate for this flight has changed owing to a technical difficulty. Please now proceed to Gate 3, where your flight will shortly be boarding. All passengers for flight AA346 to New York, please proceed now to Gate 3, where your flight will shortly be boarding.’

  The woman looked up at the departure board. Sure enough, the gate number had changed. She glanced over at the man who had just dragged his gaze from her. He too was staring at the board.

  She stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder. The man picked up the briefcase at his feet and went to join the crowd of people that were starting to cross the concourse, following the signs for Gate 3.

  0930 hours.

  Terminal 5 at Heathrow was a great deal busier than Tampa International. It was later here, and the passengers were swarming – scanning their passports at the self-service check-in desks, greeting and saying farewell to loved ones. The air rang with echoing announcements – security warnings and final calls. ‘Passengers for flight BA729 for Dublin are requested to make their way to Gate 12, where boarding will shortly commence.’

  The 186 people who, having heard the announcement, started to filter out of the shops and restaurants and seating areas in the direction of Gate 12, made no impression on the thousands of other passengers milling around, waiting for their own flights. Why would they? They were not out of the ordinary. Just normal men, women and children. Preparing to take an uneventful flight.

  Unaware anything might be wrong.

  0935 hours.

  Joe skirted south along the western edge of Bristol International Airport. Somehow he needed to gain access to the airfield.

  He was off the main road now, speeding along a deserted lane. Every 100 metres or so there was a little cluster of red-brick houses, long since left empty because they were so close to the airport. Beyond the houses he saw
glimpses of overgrown gardens and tumbledown sheds. Then fifty metres of wasteland. And then the wire fence, easily five metres high and topped with razor wire, that marked the airport’s boundary.

  Unscalable. But not impenetrable.

  Joe stopped by one of the empty houses. The front garden was a jungle and the windows were boarded up. There was, however, a cracked tarmac driveway leading to the back of the house. He dismounted and let the bike fall. He was clearly alongside the runway now, because he could see and hear an EasyJet flight rising in a straight line into the air, about 200 metres to his east. The roar of its engine thundered across the sky. A hundred metres beyond it he could see the Agusta circling. To have a chopper in the airspace around a commercial runway was unusual. That it appeared to have followed a route similar to his own was suspicious. They were looking for someone.

  He ran five metres along the cracked tarmac and into the back garden, crashing through metre-high grass and thistles to a dilapidated shed at the end. The door came off in his hands as he pulled. Inside it was filled with cobwebs and old paint pots. There was a mouldering deckchair and three dusty demijohns. Then Joe spotted a pair of rusty secateurs. He grabbed them and scaled the wooden fence at the end of the garden, before sprinting across the wasteland between the house and the airfield’s boundary.

  The EasyJet plane that he had seen taking off was a speck in the distance to the south. By the time, half a minute later, that Joe had reached the fence, a second aircraft, with a logo he didn’t recognize, had taken its place. Not that he was paying much attention to it. The secateurs in his right hand were stiff and blunt and it was with difficulty that he cut through the reinforced wire of the airfield’s perimeter fence. He’d made twelve incisions before he had created a hole large enough to stuff through the bag containing the sniper rifle, and then himself. The jagged wire cut through his clothes and into his arms.

  Time check: 0939. The Agusta was still hovering 300 metres away on the far side of the airport.

  As far as he could see in front of him, there was a open expanse of airfield. If the guys in the Agusta had eyes out for him, there was nowhere he could hide from them. He had two or three minutes before they spotted him. If that.

  He had to focus on just one thing. A diversion. Big enough to put the shits up every air-traffic controller from Bristol to Bangalore. And he had less than twenty minutes to do it.

  0440 hours EST.

  The waiting area for Gate 3 at Tampa International’s departures lounge was filling up. Two smiling air hostesses stood at the entrance, inserting the boarding cards of each of the passengers and checking that their features matched the image that appeared on the screen in front of them, before ushering them through with a cheery ‘Good morning’. The grunts they received in return were, in general, not friendly. The passengers for flight AA346 were tired from rising early, and not pleased with the long walk to this gate in an isolated part of the airport. It didn’t stop the two hostesses from sounding chirpy.

  When a plain-looking young man wearing a University of Miami sweatshirt and carrying a bright orange shoulder bag handed over his card, there was nothing to give the two young ladies any indication that he was not a student. But then an FBI air marshal who was scanning the assembled passengers for suspicious-looking personnel noticed the way he was avoiding eye contact with his five colleagues who had already passed through.

  A bland voice from the Tannoy: ‘This is the final call for flight AA346 to New York. Will any remaining passengers please proceed directly to Gate 3, where your aircraft is ready to board.’

  Five minutes later a middle-aged man with a grey beard and wearing an airport uniform approached the hostesses. ‘All passengers accounted for?’ he asked them.

  They nodded, and when the man took hold of the microphone that they themselves would normally use to address the passengers, the two hostesses exchanged a glance. This was unusual. But they were practised at looking unflustered, and their faces registered no surprise when he spoke. ‘Excuse me, folks, if I could have your attention. As you know, we’ve encountered a few technical difficulties with our gate system. We’ve arranged for some buses to take you directly from your gate to the aircraft. If I could ask all passengers sitting in rows A to G to make their way to the first bus, we’ll have you all boarded and in the air in no time at all.’

  He released the button on the microphone and turned to the hostesses. ‘Emergency code Alpha Twelve,’ he breathed. ‘We’ll take it from here.’

  The two young women looked startled. One of them glanced over her shoulder. Standing in the stark white corridor twenty metres distant from the gate, she saw two broad-shouldered men. They were wearing holiday gear and carrying shoulder bags. But they didn’t approach the gate. They didn’t move at all. They stood there, human barriers, waiting for anyone who felt the sudden need to run from the gate.

  0940 hours.

  Eva fell.

  She cried out as her phone dropped to the ground, and although she barely felt the strength to stand up, her hand shot out to check it wasn’t damaged. The screen was still intact. But there was still no signal.

  Mustering all her energy, she got to her feet again. The bandage around her waist was soaked with blood – the wound was suppurating again. She put it from her mind. The road was heading uphill to a rise thirty metres away. Her teeth grinding, her jaw set, she limped on.

  0945 hours.

  Joe ran north, keeping close to the perimeter fence. Airport security was always tight, but whether anyone had eyes on the right place at the right time was impossible to predict. Joe just had to keep to his plan, and that meant following the runway up towards the taxiing area, and from there in the direction of the terminal building.

  A hundred metres passed. Two hundred. The Agusta was still circling in the sky above the far side of the runway, about a half klick from his position. He counted three aircraft queuing for the runway and a fourth accelerating down it. He could see the terminal now, a quarter klick to the north-east. He stopped and crouched down low in a patch of long grass, before removing the telescopic sight from the bag and using it to scan the intervening ground. There were a number of vehicles: passenger buses, forklifts for the luggage and small trucks that refuelled the aircraft, their sides emblazoned with green BP logos. Three of the fuel trucks were parked in a line, 100 metres to the east and adjacent to a steel hut. Two men, dressed in blue overalls and with ID tags clipped to their chests, were standing and talking between the hut and the fuel vehicles. One of them had a cigarette behind his ear, unlit while he was in the vicinity of the aviation fuel. Panning south he saw two airport security vans 300 metres away on the other side of the airport; as he moved the sight upwards, he got a closer look at the Agusta. There were no distinguishing marks to indicate whom it contained.

  Joe stowed the sight away, making calculations that were second nature to him. How quickly could he get to the steel hut, and could he do it without being seen? Twenty seconds max, he reckoned. As for remaining unseen? No chance. The two men by the fuel trucks were looking in his direction, and it wasn’t like he had time to wait for them to wander off for a slash.

  Stealth wasn’t an option. The only tools available to him were speed, and when he got there, brute force.

  He felt for the handgun he’d taken from the drug dealer what seemed like days ago but was only the previous afternoon, then pushed himself to his feet and started to run.

  Joe ate up the first fifty metres in less than ten seconds, and as he reached that halfway point he thought he might be getting away with it. The two airport workers were just staring at him stupidly, their feet glued to the ground.

  But with forty metres to go, the two men had turned and were going into the hut. They had definitely seen him. Joe forced himself to move even faster. After another ten seconds he had burst through the door of the hut, weapon in hand. The place stank greasily of aviation fuel. One of the men had a telephone to his ear, the other was just standing in the
middle of the hut, frozen with fear.

  ‘Get on the fucking floor!’ Joe roared, aiming his pistol first at one man, then the other. ‘On the fucking floor, now!’

  Both men dropped to the ground.

  There was no time to restrain them. Joe had to put them out of action, and fast. He turned the gun round to hold it by its barrel, then slammed the grip down on the back of each man’s head, knocking them out cold.

  Joe straightened up. He could hear the tinny, urgent sound of a man’s voice from the telephone handset. He ignored it as he slipped his bag from his shoulder and took out the components of the sniper rifle. He fitted these together, each section clunking solidly into its neighbour until, fifteen seconds later, the weapon was ready to use. He pulled out the ammunition and loaded up, then looked once more around the hut. A steel cabinet standing against one wall, lockable but open, contained six keys hanging on hooks. Joe grabbed them all. The rest of the hut was a jumble of tools, jerrycans, greasy rags – everything needed to keep the fuel trucks on the road. Stashed in one corner were five handheld air-traffic-control beacons, each a couple of feet in length. Joe grabbed one and, beacon in one hand, sniper rifle in the other, ran back outside.

  He knew he had less than a minute – the alarm had been raised by a phone call – and although the Agusta was still circling, it would be heading in his direction any moment. Joe sprinted towards one of the fuel trucks. A dial on the back indicated that it was three quarters full. He ran round to the cab, laid his rifle on the tarmac and jumped up into the driver’s seat, pulling the keys from his pocket one by one and trying them in the ignition. The engine started on his fifth attempt. Joe pressed his foot on the brake, then knocked the automatic gearbox into drive.

  The sound of sirens reached him. He blocked them from his mind as, foot still awkwardly pressed on the brake, he manoeuvred himself into a position half in, half out of the cab, clutching the beacon and preparing to jam it against the accelerator.