by Andy McNab
‘I told you, a man took the children.’ Delphine tried not to show her fear.
Laszlo nodded. ‘And what was he wearing?’
‘A wet suit,’ she said, with a spark of defiance. ‘He was coming out of the toilet.’
Laszlo’s expression didn’t change, but he drew back his fist and punched her hard in the face. She slumped to the floor, trying to clear her head. He dragged her up again.
Blood streamed from her nose and tears filled her eyes. ‘I don’t know . . .’ She was having trouble breathing. ‘It was too dark. I couldn’t see properly.’
Laszlo gave her a contemptuous look. ‘Well, let me make it easier for you then. Was he tall or short, fat or fit, dark or light hair?’
‘I – I don’t know. It all happened so fast. I didn’t see his face. I guess he just looked . . . normal . . .’
Laszlo stood up and seemed to translate to his brother. He turned his attention back to the girl. ‘Tell me about the man who helped you when you were running to the toilet this morning.’
‘What man?’
‘The one who was with you when you had to throw up.’
She shrugged. ‘I felt terrible. He was just some nice guy who offered to help me.’
Laszlo gave a thin smile. He spoke even more softly, but there was no mistaking the menace in his tone. ‘And yet I’m fairly sure I heard you call him Tom . . .’
‘Maybe that was his name. I really can’t remember.’ She gave a hacking cough and spattered blood across the carpet.
‘Why would a stranger help you?’
‘Normal people do things like that for each other.’ She was beginning to regain her composure. ‘Not everyone has to be an arsehole.’
Laszlo chose to ignore the comment. The girl had spirit, and he couldn’t help admiring that. He glanced at Sambor, who was still standing impassively behind her, and nodded.
Moments later, Sambor held up a battered French passport and a mobile phone. Laszlo took the passport and flicked through it. ‘Hmm . . . so, Delphine Prideux . . .’ He nodded at his brother and asked him a question.
Sambor reached into his jacket and brought out a sheaf of closely printed sheets. Studying them intently, he ran an index finger the size of a sausage down each page. As he read them out, Delphine recognized the words ‘Tom’, ‘Thomas’ and ‘Prideux’. Then he repeated the process. ‘Tomas Alvarez . . . Thomas George Buckingham . . . Tom Leary . . .’
The alarm began to sound on Laszlo’s mobile phone. ‘Thirty minutes already.’ He switched off the pealing church bells. ‘As the English say, doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself?’ A thought struck him as he put Delphine’s passport into his pocket. ‘I’m getting careless. I must be losing my edge.’ He held out his hand to Sambor. He gave Laszlo Delphine’s phone.
Laszlo watched what little colour was left drain from Delphine’s cheeks as he began checking through her call register and texts. He didn’t have to scroll far. A moment later he turned the phone towards her so that she could see the screen. It displayed the most recent message she had received. It read:
Lock door. Lift toilet seat.
The sender ID simply said ‘Tom’.
His hand shot out, grabbed her by the throat and dragged her to her feet. ‘Do you know what those church bells tell me? That the British have failed to meet the deadline for accepting my demands.’ He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘It’s time to kill another hostage.’
Knuckles whitening as he tightened his grip, he pushed her down the carriage in front of him, towards the driver’s cab.
He stopped at the door, among a crowd of terrified passengers still standing upright, hands on their heads, facing the windows. Some of the older and frailer of them were feeling the strain: their arms, legs and, in one case, whole body were shaking from a combination of fear and the sheer effort of holding the stress position.
Laszlo detected a voice cutting through the mush from the speaker beside the driver’s controls. ‘Ah, they have mastered the technology at last.’ He released his grip on Delphine’s throat and punched her to the floor. Leaving Sambor to stand watch over her, he walked into the driver’s cab, picked up the mic, and kept eye-to-eye with the girl as he spoke.
‘So, who am I talking to now?’
‘My name is James Woolf.’
‘Ah, Mr Woolf . . . We talk at last.’
He had heard about Woolf. Known in the intelligence community as a dogged pursuer, he was the only foreigner who’d actually gone to South Ossetia to find out more about his target. It hadn’t taken long for word to reach Laszlo.
‘Indeed.’
Laszlo was very happy with the shift up the hierarchy from chief constable. So the British had started to get their act together. Not bad for thirty minutes.
‘Well, Mr Woolf, I take it that we have the first element of any negotiation completed. We have a relationship. You know me, and I know you – that is to say, I know about you. Whoever else is listening, I don’t know you, and I don’t care to.’
Laszlo knew that any negotiator needs to build a rapport, a relationship based on a form of trust. He or she needs to show that they are actively listening, to communicate openly so that the hostage-taker feels he isn’t being lied to – even when he is. The negotiator needs to connect on a personal level, to show that he or she cares, and to keep the conversation slow. Small-talk first; never straight to business. But that wasn’t going to happen today.
‘Your thirty minutes are up. What news do you have for me?’
‘You must understand that these things take time. What’s your intended route, so I can clear it with air-traffic control? Which sun-drenched tax haven is going to have the pleasure of your company?’
‘I wasn’t born yesterday, Mr Woolf. You sound to me like a man who is stalling.’
‘Mr Antonov, I need some more time. I’m trying as hard as I can, but you know how these things work – I have to get permission from COBRA.’
‘Mr Woolf, time is one commodity that you do not have. Stop stalling.’
‘I am trying to do what you asked – but thirty minutes to organize a helicopter and a substantial amount of gold?’
Laszlo could hear Woolf doing his best to slow the exchange – never antagonizing him, but at the same time not giving him an inch.
‘As the saying goes,’ Woolf continued, ‘the impossible I can do at once, but miracles take a little longer.’
Laszlo gave a sigh, like a teacher presented with some disappointing homework by a star pupil. ‘I confess I expected better of you. Can we not dispense with these formalities and speak really honestly, one professional to another? Is it absolutely necessary for us to have to go on with this very painful process, killing one passenger here, another one there?’
‘But I need detail. You need to help me help you here. I need to know how much fuel the aircraft will require. I need to know the number of passengers so the payload/fuel ratio can be factored in . . .’
The line went silent apart from a gentle electronic hiss.
Woolf’s pencil hovered over the sheet of A4 paper in front of him. It was now a mass of doodled caricatures, some charming, some grotesque – his way of attempting to calm himself during the potentially more heated moments of the exchange. He put the pencil to one side and began to build a small barrier of sugar lumps on the desk top.
Finally Laszlo replied: ‘May I call you James?’
Woolf took a deep breath. ‘No. You may not.’
Laszlo didn’t miss a beat. ‘Mr Woolf, I am reminded of your prime minister when he told us that we cannot coddle the slowest runners just because they are slow.’ He didn’t attempt the accent. ‘“We must inspire speed.” Now, please listen carefully.’
Woolf, those at the COBRA table and everyone in the Folkestone holding area listened to the squeak of combat boots followed by a whimper and the sound of a body being dragged closer to the mic.
There was a moment of silence, and then the muffled but unmis
takable double report of a suppressed weapon.
67
THE SOUND STILL seemed to echo in the hangar air, long after Laszlo cut the transmission.
Gavin watched the colour drain from Woolf’s face.
‘As delaying actions go, that wasn’t wholly successful, was it?’ The MI5 man was trying to sound his normal, imperturbable, slightly cynical self, but the tremor in his voice betrayed him.
Gavin shrugged. He neither liked nor disliked Woolf, but he had to feel a little sympathy for him in this predicament. ‘Mate, I really don’t think there was anything you could have done to change that.’ He passed his paper cup of brew to Woolf as a comfort offering. ‘That cunt had already decided he was going to shoot another Yankee way before he started talking to you.’
Woolf thought about it for a few moments as he took a sip or two of the hot sweet liquid. ‘You might be right.’ He passed the brew back. They were bonding. ‘It certainly fits his profile. But that knowledge doesn’t make me feel any better. I bloody hate this part of the job.’ He stared into space for a few moments, then made a conscious effort to rally himself. ‘What’s your best estimate of casualties if the powers-that-be decide to pass control to you as soon as the team is ready to go?’
‘Given the linear nature of the Channel Tunnel, and the lack of int . . .’ Gavin closed his eyes as if expecting the number to appear magically on the screen inside his head ‘. . . I reckon up to forty per cent of the hostages will be history in an emergency response. However, if we were given some additional time to work up a deliberate option, we should be able to reduce that number significantly.’
‘How long would that take?’ Woolf said.
Gavin shrugged. ‘At least a couple of hours to allow the snipers to get into position and the assault team to do a close-target recce. But I suspect we won’t be allowed anywhere near that amount of time.’
68
GAVIN JUMPED OUT of his seat as rubber squealed on painted concrete and the first of the Blue team’s Range Rovers surged into the hangar. All he had to do was point where he wanted it to go. With another chorus of squeals it pulled a three-point turn, faced back towards the entrance and stopped. Its four occupants had scarcely left the vehicle and begun to unload when the next Range Rover screamed in and pulled up to its left.
When the Transits arrived, they’d line up about fifteen metres behind them. The space between was the Blue team’s admin area, where they’d sort themselves out and sleep. The Range Rovers were always in front, in case they needed to rig them up as ops vehicles.
Every item of kit was taken out of each wagon and laid out on grey blankets: sleeping cots; ladders; extra ammo; sledgehammers; axes; boxes of flash-bangs, and specialist weapons such as Federal riot guns and suppressed 9mm machine-guns.
The moment Gavin had given his orders and the assaulters were tasked, they’d go and pick up whatever was needed. Until then, they’d haul their black party gear out of their ready-bags and put it on, then head over to Gavin’s patch to see what he had in mind for the ER.
The first of the Transits arrived. The signal guys tied black bin liners to its back doors as soon as they’d swung open. Otherwise the ocean of white paper cups would become a tsunami.
69
THE COMMITTEE SAT on the edges of their seats as Woolf gave it one more try. ‘Mr Antonov, please answer.’
Clements broke the silence. ‘It’s an absolute tragedy, of course, no doubt about that, but we have gained a very valuable piece of information.’
‘Do educate us, Mr Clements.’ Sarah Garvey didn’t turn to look at him, just checked the sea of blank faces around her. ‘I’m struggling to see anything but a major disaster in the making.’
‘Antonov was obviously planning to kill another hostage right from the start. It’s a classic strategy: a demonstration of raw power, a pause for discussions to show that you are open to negotiation and can be reasoned with, and then you go for the jugular with brutal, overwhelming force.’
‘So what do you propose we do about it?’ she asked icily.
‘As I have suggested from the start, we fight fire with fire. Send in the SAS as soon as they’re ready.’
Chief Constable Alderson was becoming increasingly exasperated with their sparring but he didn’t interrupt.
Sarah shook her head. ‘That option is a last resort, to be adopted only when all other avenues have been exhausted.’
‘For God’s sake,’ Clements was making no attempt to hide his irritation, ‘do we have to sit here discussing points of procedure while he kills one hostage after another after another, until you finally get the message?’
‘You heard the SAS estimate of potential casualties.’ She checked her notes. ‘It was forty per cent. Even if Antonov kills one hostage every thirty minutes, it would take days to reach that total.’
‘Home Secretary, if I may . . .’ Alderson received several megawatts of glare from Clements for his interruption, but he had had enough. ‘We have no idea what Antonov is up to down there. The demands he has made – to me they seem so basic and naïve. Even the bullion he has stipulated – it comes to just over five million pounds. Hardly worth all this effort. We know he has explosives, and we know he has manpower. This is not an escape attempt gone wrong just because some SAS trooper happened to bump into him on the train.’
Clements was fuming. ‘Mr Alderson, you must remember we dictate policy. Your police, and the military for that matter, are simply the instruments of that policy.’
Alderson could hold a stare as long as the next man, but he simply couldn’t be bothered. He was actually backing up what Clements had been saying, if only he’d bothered to listen. He sighed inwardly, and tried to console himself with the thought that in two more years he’d retire; he’d no longer have to deal with arseholes like this man.
Brookdale sparked up from his wall seat, tapping on his mobile screen calculator. ‘The government would still want to see a negotiated settlement. Even if there have already been more casualties in the explosions, and if we lose one, even two, every thirty minutes during the negotiation, the death to benefit ratio would be acceptable – as long as the number of survivors is still many times greater.
‘We could still be seen as saving lives, given that Laszlo had planned to kill many more. The government’s gain is well worth a certain amount of hostage pain. But forty per cent? That’s a very big number to sell out there on the street, Home Secretary.’
The elephant in the room was the likely scale of their own casualties: if the SAS attacked, how many of them would also be killed? But it wasn’t a very scary elephant. The Men in Black had volunteered to do what they did. No one had been press-ganged; no one had been bullshitted. It was their job, and there were thousands only too eager to take their place. The day they didn’t like it, they should leave; it was as simple as that. And Brookdale and his people would play the hero card: the nation would be proud of the courageous young men who’d sacrificed their lives in the battle against evil, terror, unspeakable violence . . . or whatever seemed the best way of selling the story that particular day.
The one thing Sarah Garvey was not was indecisive. ‘I’m going to need a little more than hunches to convince me. We all share the same distaste at the thought of casualties, but sometimes we have to accept one unpleasantness in order to forestall a much greater tragedy.’
Brookdale was scribbling furiously. She watched him for a moment then continued: ‘I will accept additional casualties while we learn more about what Antonov is up to in that tunnel. In the meantime, we continue to try to negotiate.’
She stood and leaned towards them, palms flat on the veneered table top. ‘Now I’m going to take five minutes to clear my mind and my bladder.’
70
TOM WAS IN tabbing mode, intent on making as much distance down the service tunnel as he could. His body and hair were soaked with sweat; his jeans clung to his legs as if he’d been in a thunderstorm. He soon hit his rhythm, his breathin
g constant, his feet kept low, at little more than shuffling height. He gripped the children firmly but not painfully as he moved through the darkness with the gentle echo of his and Rose’s footsteps trailing behind him.
Their confined and solitary world suddenly erupted with 7.62 machine-gun fire, each twenty-round burst compressing into one long, loud explosion that rumbled towards them.
Tom dropped flat, Daniel still on his back. Rose followed suit. The children screamed, first in pain and then in fear. Their pursuers’ rapid muzzle flash lit up the tunnel six, maybe seven hundred metres away, with the heart-stopping fury of an approaching tube train.
Tom was pretty sure their two pursuers had finally doubled back and picked up the gun team by the green door. They’d screwed up; they knew that. And the only way to try to rectify the situation was to put rounds down the service tunnel and hope for the best.
There was nowhere for Tom and the kids to go but low as rounds flew overhead, close enough for them to hear the zinging sound before they ricocheted off the walls and ceiling and tumbled onwards at an even higher pitch. The green one-in-five tracer rounds sped towards them in a gentle arc. Some hit the walls ahead and cartwheeled, like demented supersonic fireworks.
All they could do was lie there while the rounds kept coming. Maybe the enemy would come and check the tunnel for bodies later; maybe they wouldn’t. He just wanted to protect these two as long as he could, and then make damn sure none of them was here when their pursuers reached this point.
In the glow of the muzzle flash, he saw the shadow of another ladder on the wall to one side of them. There must be another access hatch on the roof.
Tom shouted above the din, keeping an arm across each child so they stayed exactly where they were: he needed their attention.