Licensed to Spy

by Barbara Davies

  Ash’s smile disappeared as she realised the members of the boating party were completely oblivious to the terrorist running along the quay towards them. That changed. Abdusamad put his hand around the woman in yellow’s neck and pressed his Beretta to her temple. Though she screamed for help, her friend was too stunned to move. And as Abdusamad shouted orders down to the men in the speedboats, they too seemed unable to grasp what was required. In fact, they began to argue the point.

  Idiots. “Get out and give him a boat,” yelled Ash, and all eyes turned in her direction. Abdusamad mouthed her name and aimed his pistol at her instead.

  The bullet whizzed over her head as she threw herself forward in a controlled roll, then came to her feet once more. She was relieved to see that Abdusamad’s hostage had taken advantage of the distraction to break free, and now stood with her friend some yards away. Good girl.

  Cursing, he leaped down into one of the speedboats and shoved its drunken occupant overboard. He untied the mooring rope, and the powerful engines roared into life.

  As the speedboat pulled away, its wash rocked the other craft and almost tipped the dripping wet man hauling himself aboard it back into the water. Hands balled into fists, Ash watched Abdusamad steer the boat into the channel that connected St. Katharine Dock to the Thames. Moments later, he was out of sight.

  She swung herself onto the metal ladder bolted to the quay’s stone wall, and started down it. At the bottom, she stepped onto the speedboat, which rocked alarmingly. Its occupants turned and gaped at her.

  “Who are—?”

  “Get out,” said Ash, drawing her Browning. She had no intention of using it, but the two fast sobering men weren’t to know that. They exchanged a glance then scrambled up the metal ladder, almost falling off it in their haste.

  Ignoring the indignant shouts raining down on her—HQ would have to soothe some ruffled feathers once this was over—she cast off and threw herself into one of the white bucket seats. The controls looked pretty standard, and the key was in the ignition. She turned it, and the twin engines roared into life. I hope this thing has enough fuel. I haven’t got time for a top up.

  Keeping the wheel turned over as far as it would go, Ash thrust the throttle forward, and like a jungle cat pouncing, the speedboat leaped away from the quay. If she hadn’t been sitting down, it would have thrown her overboard. Nice. She took the same channel as Abdusamad and emerged moments later into the Thames … at far too high a speed. Only quick reactions avoided a collision with a bunting-clad river cruiser lumbering straight at her.

  “Oops! Sorry.” Hand raised in apology at the tourists clutching the cruiser’s railings, Ash steered hard to port, then headed east.

  She was going on gut instinct rather than evidence—the wake from Abdusamad’s speedboat had dispersed, and if he had come this way, he was now hidden from view by the riverbank, which curved north. Glancing at each bank in turn, she got her bearings. Bermondsey to the right, Wapping to the left. Ah. Somewhere beneath must lie the Rotherhithe tunnel.

  It occurred to her that this was the life. Zooming along in a speedboat, the sun and spray on her face, the wind in her hair … all it needed for perfection was Jemma beside her and a glass of good wine. Later, she promised herself, wrenching her attention back to the here and now. She edged the throttle forward another notch.

  The river turned south, forming a huge loop around the Isle of Dogs, and she glanced at the distinctive pointed silhouette that was the Canary Wharf Tower, before returning her attention to the increasingly choppy water ahead. Still no sign of Abdusamad. Suppose he’d doubled back and hidden in one of the many dock entrances that peppered this stretch of the Thames? Suppose he wasn’t going to Tilbury after all? But I made my choice and I’m sticking to it.

  Beyond a riverside pub, its tables sheltering under huge red-and-white umbrellas, was a pier. An angler fishing from it shouted at Ash and waved both his arms, but she couldn’t hear him above the engine roar. Mad at me for scaring the fish, I expect. She dismissed him from her thoughts.

  Greenwich was coming up fast on her right, and Ash barely had time to register the Cutty Sark’s three masts jutting up from its dry dock before she was past and following the river’s curving loop north again. Then she saw what she had been waiting for. A speedboat up ahead.

  She shaded her eyes and squinted, and saw a familiar profile looking back at her. The wind whipped away her whoop of triumph, as she pushed the throttle up yet another notch. At this speed, it wasn’t long before the fibreglass speedboat began to aquaplane, and only Ash’s lightning fast reflexes kept it from spinning out of control. As she manipulated steering and trimmed controls, it occurred to her that this was hardly keeping the promise she had given Jemma to be careful. But she was loving every minute of it. And when Abdusamad tried to match her speed, he had trouble controlling his boat, and was soon forced to drop back.

  Ash pulled out her mobile phone, checked there was a signal, and dialled HQ.

  “Yes?”

  “Blade here.” One-handed she corrected course to avoid a lumbering Thames barge full of coal. “Tell Thompson I’ve found our lost Libyan. He’s in a speedboat on the Thames heading east—just coming up on the Millennium Dome, in fact. And I’m on his tail.” She cut off the squawk of surprise and repocketed her phone.

  She was coming abreast of the huge architectural crown of thorns that was the Dome when Abdusamad turned, raised his right arm, and pointed at her. A ragged hole appeared in the passenger side of her split windscreen. To try shooting her from that range showed he must be spooked. Lucky shot. Evidently he felt the same—he didn’t waste ammunition on another shot.

  The Thames curved back on itself then curved again until Ash’s senses told her she was heading almost due east. It had widened until it was almost a third of a mile across, and now, directly ahead of her, she saw the five-storey high Thames Barrier, meant to protect London in time of flood. She frowned. A group of canoeists were paddling about rather aimlessly in front of it, as if waiting for something. And there was something else odd. The steel sector gates between the piers that stepped at intervals across the river were closed.

  The penny dropped. This must have been what the waving angler had been trying to warn her about: the Barrier was conducting its monthly test.

  Already Abdusamad’s speedboat was slowing. He zigzagged, looking for an open gate, but on each of the stainless-steel-cowled piers two x-shaped red warning lights blinked.

  What were the odds all the gates would be closed? Infinitesimal, surely. Ash had been beginning to think today wasn’t her day, but maybe it was after all.

  ASH HAD EXPECTED Abdusamad to head for the north bank, scuttle ashore, and set off running, but instead he steered towards one of the Barrier’s central piers. A bearded man in overalls and a yellow hardhat was working in the uncowled central portion of the pier. Ash willed him to look up, but he didn’t.

  When his speedboat was close enough to the pier, Abdusamad looped a mooring rope over a convenient strut and tied it off. Then he stood up, steadied himself, and leaped for the huge disk-like structure affixed to the pier’s side—the gate arm, Ash remembered reading somewhere. Frustrated, Ash watched his hands seek and find handholds—he was surprisingly agile.

  Erratic currents made the steering tricky, but at last, she pulled up alongside his boat. She tied her mooring rope to the same strut, then used his boat as a stepping stone, putting out her hands for balance as it rocked. Then, as Abdusamad had before her, she surveyed the gate arm for handholds, steadied herself, and leaped.

  As a former cat burglar, Ash had no trouble following his route up the side of the pier. But by now he had pulled himself over the railing at the top, and he glanced back down, raised his Beretta, and fired off a round. Heart thumping, she tried to make herself as small as possible. The bullet whizzed past and with a loud slap vanished into the Thames.

  She watched the circle of ripples widen. I’m a sitting duck. The sensible thing
would be to let go and jump; at least in the river she stood a chance. But to be so near to the man who had put Jemma through hell and to let him go? She couldn’t do it. Sorry, Jemma.

  Redistributing her weight so that she could get a hand free, Ash drew her own gun and risked a look up. To her amazement and relief, Abdusamad had disappeared. That was a mistake, Abdusamad. And you only get the one. Deep breaths leached the adrenaline from her system and the shakiness from her arms and legs, then she resumed climbing.

  At the top she took her weight on tiptoes and fingertips and stretched up until she could just see the deck of the pier. To her surprise it was empty—no sign of either Abdusamad or the man she had seen working there. She heaved herself up over the railing. Movement on the next pier over attracted her attention. She did a double take. Was that figure in the yellow hardhat the same engineer or a different one? Squinting, she recognised the beard and broken nose. Interesting. So there must be some way of getting from pier to pier.

  Eyes searching, Ash pivoted. An open doorway intrigued her—it opened onto a stairwell that led down into the depths. She stuck her head inside and heard the echoing sound of hurrying footsteps, getting fainter. Abdusamad? She set off after him.

  The stairs led her to a dimly lit service subway. With a grimace Ash started along it, hoping that the trickles down its curving walls were condensation not Thames water. Unnerving clanks and gurglings accompanied her from the pipes and cables that snaked along the interior walls of the tunnel, but she pushed her apprehension aside and broke into a jog.

  After about two-hundred feet she came to another stairwell. Had Abdusamad made for the surface or continued on? She tossed a mental coin then started up. Three flights of stairs later, just inside the doorway leading out onto deck, she halted. Two male voices were raised in argument. The one with the foreign accent was instantly familiar. The other …

  She peered around the doorjamb and waited for her eyes to adjust to daylight. A bearded man in a yellow hardhat and oil-stained overalls was gesturing at Abdusamad, who fortunately had his back to her.

  “I can’t,” he shouted. “The test doesn’t finish for another five minutes.” As a pistol was pointed at his head, he was either brave or stupid.

  Ash had a clear shot, and no one would blame her for shooting a terrorist in the back. But she wanted to know why he had come all this way to get her and Jemma, and why he had resorted to brainwashing when a bomb would have done the job. And, she admitted to herself darkly, she wanted him to suffer.

  As she surged out into the open, the man in the hardhat’s eyes widened. Abdusamad glanced over his shoulder, but by then, Ash was on him. She hammered his elbow with the butt of her pistol, and with a yelp he dropped his Beretta. She kicked it through the railings and had time only to register its distant splash before Abdusamad was upon her. He caught her off balance, and she fell, cracking the side of her head against the railing on the way down.

  Her head swam, and for a moment her vision blurred. She felt Abdusamad tying to prise the pistol from her grip, but she hung on and kicked out blindly. Something crunched under her heel, and his high-pitched squeal told her she had found a sensitive spot. Then her vision cleared, and she saw him lying curled on the deck, hands cupped around his privates. His eyes were closed and he was dry-heaving. And his interest in her pistol seemed to have evaporated.

  Keeping her eyes on him, Ash holstered her gun. “Get out of here,” she told the engineer in the hardhat.

  He gaped at her. “But—”

  “Now.” She pulled her Home Office ID card from her pocket and flashed it. “And lock the door behind you.”

  That did the trick. As the engineer scurried towards the stairwell and slammed the door closed behind him, Abdusamad got groaning to his knees and then to his feet. The scrape and thud of bolts sliding home was followed by footsteps receding into the distance. Good.

  Abdusamad glared at her and bunched his hands into fists. In reply, Ash bared her teeth. Time to settle the score.

  He swung first, but he was still unsteady, his movements sluggish and uncoordinated. A punch to his gut doubled him over. “That’s for Janus.” She gave the side of his knee a judicious kick, and his leg collapsed, dropping him to the deck once more. “And that’s for Jemma.”

  Black eyes full of hatred looked up at her. “Who,” he gasped, “is Janus?”

  Anger exploded inside her, and she kicked him in the gut again. “Don’t play the innocent. Do you know what it’s like watching someone bleed so much you’re sure they’re going to die? You put Jemma through that, you bastard.”

  “Not … me.” He spoke between wheezing breaths.

  “You shit! You blew up my car, bombed my flat. That I can understand. I messed up things for you and your Commander. But killing my informant, targeting my partner and friends …”

  For the first time she saw fear in his expression, quickly masked. “You are a crazy woman. The bomb in the car, the flat, these I admit … but this other … No. It is lies.”

  Ash drew back her fist, looking forward to feeling his nose crunch under her knuckles, but hesitated. Something about Abdusamad’s reaction had the ring of truth. She had sensed deep down that something wasn’t right. It had been … convenient to blame everything on the man groaning at her feet. Convenient, but wrong.

  Come on, Ash, think. Abdusamad was never the brains. And with al-Akhdar behind bars …

  His leap took her by surprise. One minute he had been lying groaning on the deck, the next he had rushed to the railing and vaulted over it. He must have been faking, or he had quicker recuperative powers than she had given him credit for. She peered over the side, expecting to find him swimming, but he was walking along the top of the sector gate that connected this pier to the next, arms held wide like a tightrope walker.

  Ash reached for her pistol then hesitated. Should she shoot Abdusamad or go after him?

  The canoeists were gaping up at him and pointing. And on the next pier over, another worker in a yellow hardhat noticed the man walking towards him. His mouth formed an “O” of astonishment, and he shouted and waved. The wind swept his words away.

  Somewhere a siren sounded, and, as one, the canoeists started to paddle away from the barrier, spreading out in formation. Ash left her gun in its holster and gripped the railing, wondering at the reason for the exodus.

  “Test concluded. Stand clear,” came a tinny voice from a loudspeaker set in the concrete of the pier. “This sector gate is about to open.”

  As Ash watched, eyes widening, a judder ran through the massive metal slab under Abdusamad’s feet and it began to sink. His arms windmilled, and for a moment she thought he was going to fall. Somehow, though, he regained his balance and managed to keep it as the gate continued its descent. Then it began to tilt, and she remembered something else—the gate arms didn’t lift or drop but rather rotated each gate until its convex side fit snugly into a curved concreted recess in the riverbed, allowing the pent up waters of the Thames to flow above.

  So that’s what the canoeists were waiting for. Their own white water ride.

  Ash bit her lip. While the surge of river water strong enough to carry everything in its path might be fun for canoeists, it would be less so for Abdusamad. In his weakened state—the state her thirst for revenge had left him in, she acknowledged with a twinge of remorse—he stood little chance. No one would blame her for leaving him to his fate. He was a terrorist, after all. But …

  Her indecision annoyed her. What would Jemma want me to do? She pictured the clear eyes regarding her, the grave expression as she related what she had done … or not done, then sighed. She had her answer.

  ABDUSAMAD STOOD A few feet from Ash, his back towards her, his arms outstretched, too terrified to move, and a belated thought occurred to her. Maybe he can’t swim!

  The sector gate’s tilt had become much more pronounced, and she was finding it increasingly hard to keep her footing. It was tempting to jump off the eastern side�
�the river level was higher there—but the gate, now sloping at forty-five degrees, made a good chute, and on the western side they’d be protected until the very last moment when the rim dipped below the surface and the levels on each side of the barrier equalised. Once in the river, they must head for the bank—the surge of river water should be weaker there. Okay then.

  She compensated by reflex as the gate sank a few more degrees. Abdusamad wobbled badly, though, and she feared he was going to overbalance. Better get a move on. She closed the gap between them, placing her feet with care.

  “I’m going to grab hold of your belt.”

  He jerked at the sound of her voice but didn’t turn his head. Careful not to spook him further, she grasped the back of his belt. It was made of thick black leather—Jemma’s friend Louise might still be alive had she worn such a belt. Hope I don’t break my bloody wrist.

  “What now?” His voice was a croak.

  “We slide.”

  “Slide?” At that Abdusamad turned his head to look at her, his eyes wide.

  Ash didn’t wait for him to find reasons not to. She yanked, and with a startled cry, he lurched sideways. Then they were both sliding down the metal surface, heading for the river. Ash’s jeans took the brunt of the friction-generated heat, before she plunged feet-first into water so cold by contrast it was shocking. She had time only to register that the strain on her wrist had gone and to grab a frantic gulp of air before she went under.

  Down she sank. And down. How deep is the Thames here? Ten feet … twenty … Then something jarred her soles and she bent her knees to absorb the impact, pushed herself off the river bottom, and headed back up.

  Surfacing, she took in a grateful gulp of air, flicked wet hair out of her face, and got her bearings. The Thames Barrier was a little to the east of her, and there was no sign of Abdusamad. From the nearer piers, figures in yellow hardhats were looking down at her. They were yelling and waving, but water clogged her ears so she couldn’t make out the words. It didn’t matter. She took a deep breath, then, with a strong kick, surged up out of the water and let the force of her re-entry carry her back under.