by Andy McNab
‘What? We allowed—’
‘Please, Home Secretary . . . We didn’t allow anything. “Gone native” is the expression that best describes that especially unfortunate and potentially damaging episode. The young man was weak and fell easily under the Antonov spell. It was as simple as that.’ Clements knew the pain would be getting unbearable but he needed to twist the knife a bit more. ‘Do you now understand why we must clean up this mess? Our creation must die, at any cost. A non-lethal arrest is simply out of the question. I’m sorry that you have been exposed to the uncomfortable truth.’
It was time to stop. Clements had his kill. But he couldn’t help himself. ‘That is why I strongly advised against his arrest in Hampstead.’
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She knew that Clements hadn’t told her everything: these people never did. However, she knew he had told her enough. ‘Did you warn Antonov yesterday, so he could escape?’
Clements was clearly taken aback. ‘Home Secretary, I can assure you that I did not. However, I can also confirm that he was warned.’
‘By whom?’
Clements spread his hands wide. ‘Person or persons unknown.’
The home secretary studied his expression for some time, certain that he knew the who, where and when. But Clements remained inscrutable. ‘If Antonov is dead, whoever it was will fade into the darkness and never emerge again. I can assure you, Home Secretary, this whole business will simply disappear.’
Sarah Garvey took a moment to assimilate the information. Her reply, when it came, wasn’t the one Clements was expecting. ‘Why the fuck wait to tell me this now? I should have known it yesterday, and then maybe we wouldn’t be facing this dreadful situation.’ She had so much more to spit at him, but knew it was a waste of time. She took a step forward and stood just inches from Clements, their faces close enough for them to feel each other’s breath. ‘You . . . fucking . . . people . . .’
She stared deep into Clements’s eyes and could see the lies and deceit that lay there. She no longer cared who Laszlo’s warning had come from. That wasn’t her problem. She was now consumed by what he might do – now, on the train, and later, if he was given a voice. ‘What if he gives himself up during an assault?’
Clements smiled bleakly. ‘There are no absolute guarantees in this game, Home Secretary, you know that. He will fight, believe me . . . but I can assure you that we will be every bit as ruthless. I will make sure that he is dealt with in a way that ensures the best possible outcome.’
Without another word, she stormed back down the corridor and re-entered the briefing room as Woolf’s voice blared over the table speaker.
‘Mr Antonov, there are reports of heavy gunfire. Can you confirm that? Is anyone hurt? If so, can we have access to them for medical treatment?’
Clements turned off the sound. He wanted to make sure there was no doubt in anyone’s mind what the home secretary was about to say. He needn’t have worried. She had everyone’s undivided attention.
‘Now that I have been able to pause for reflection . . .’ she looked around the table ‘. . . I will give permission for control to be handed to the military.’
Brookdale went scurrying from the room. One day, Clements thought, he’d have to have his mobile surgically removed from his ear.
74
TOM FOUND HIMSELF in a maze of communication cables, power lines and repair conduits. Although the rail tunnel below him had been shut down, up here it was a different story. The cables were still operational. The wires buzzed as thousands of volts of electricity surged through them. Small pinpricks of light pierced the sides of the steel flooring to give a gentle glow. Maybe that was why it felt warmer up here – or maybe it was the incredible amount of energy rushing from one side of the Channel to the other.
This was the strategic core of the tunnel system. The trains might take kids to Disneyland, pinstriped suits to Le Bourse, lovers to the banks of the Seine and HGVs full of washing-machines to Sloane Square, but here was where the real business was done. Fibre-optic cables fed everyone in the UK from money-market traders to porn downloaders. Electricity lines supplied energy from French nuclear power stations. A two-hundred-metre-diameter pipe, marked every two metres with a Danger Highly Flammable Gases warning sign, fed fuel from Eastern Europe to cookers and central-heating systems in homes across the UK.
Tom bent low, keeping clear of the live wires overhead, as he moved back towards the train. He half ran, half crouched along the duct, measuring the distance he travelled. He knew he took 118 steps per hundred metres, and there was a safety hatch every seventy or so steps. Pacing was one of the boring but vital disciplines that recruits were taught to aid the judgement of distance when moving on a compass bearing. Things like that, no soldier ever forgets.
He passed over the gun position as it fired another twenty-round burst of link. It sounded like an underground train rumbling under his feet. He reckoned he had another two hundred paces until he reached the hatch he was aiming for. Then he’d slip back down into the service tunnel beside the Paris train.
He slowed, keeping his eyes focused on the way ahead, placing his boots as gently as possible so he could get the best use of his ears. Almost immediately he spotted two shafts of stronger light dancing across the conduit walls maybe a hundred metres in front of him. The plethora of pipework and power lines temporarily blocked his view but also gave him cover. He sank down on his hands and knees and made sure his weapon was strapped tightly to his back so it wouldn’t fall onto the steel flooring.
He moved closer. There wasn’t much sound coming from up ahead. The torch beams were jerking about, still bouncing off the walls and ceiling, but the men themselves were static. He’d known from the start that nothing that had happened today had been the result of him crossing Laszlo’s path on the train. He hoped that Gavin would soon get that message as well. So what the fuck was going on?
Tom lay flat beside the next hatch and waited. There was no way he’d risk going down into the service tunnel just yet. Until the PKM crew got tired of their fireworks display, he’d be jumping out of the fire and into the frying pan. And he wanted to check out whatever was going on up here.
Tom’s Omega told him he had been on the floor for just over ten minutes. There had been no more gunfire since then and the torches were on the move. Another five and they disappeared completely.
Tom lay completely still, just listening, for three or four minutes more. Then, still keeping low, he inched forwards. The further he went, the more vigorously the reek of linseed assaulted his nostrils. In another life, it would have triggered wistful thoughts of sun-kissed cricket pavilions, cucumber sandwiches and the slap of leather on willow. Not any more. The image of Laszlo’s blonde bombshell lying by the rose pergola flashed into his mind.
It meant only one thing.
Trying not to gag, he moved close enough to see a stack of light-green two-kilo slabs wrapped in greasy paper. They looked like small loaves of flat bread. The nitro must have been sweating for years, but snatches of stencilled Cyrillic script could still be read on the stained wrapping – enough for Tom to know that the blow-by date for this ordnance was September 1997.
This sort of PE had become obsolete in the West years ago; it had probably been manufactured when Laszlo was still at school. There must have been thirty or so packages crudely piled under the gas pipeline. With that much PE – ‘P for plenty’ as it was known in the Regiment – there wasn’t much need for finesse.
But as Tom examined the charge more closely he discovered finesse aplenty. There were two initiation devices. The first was a basic anti-handling device. A detonator connected to a 12-volt battery protruded from one of the slabs. One of its thin steel wires had been cut and each bare end soldered onto the opposing jaw of a crocodile clip. A small square of plastic, attached to the pipeline structure by a single thin wire, kept the jaws apart. A sharp tug was all it would take to remove it, and the circuit would be completed.
The second device was more sophisticated: a closed alloy box taped to the rear of the pipeline. Twin antennae extended from it. Tom checked and rechecked the exterior for any hint of an anti-handling device. It had to have one: any dems man worth his salt would have made sure of that. Disturbing just one antenna would probably be enough to initiate it.
Tom was good at many things, but understanding his limitations was what he really excelled at. Gripping the crocodile clip to ensure that the plastic stayed in place, he jerked it from its fixing on the pipe and disconnected one of the det wires from the battery . . . for now.
He picked up the slab with the det still embedded, and another for luck, tucked them down the front of his jacket, and headed for the nearest hatch. The locking handles were still open, so all he had to do was ease the cover upwards. The burned-out fire appliances were immediately below him, the ground around them littered with the bodies of the dead firemen.
75
THE LAST OF the black Range Rovers screeched to a halt in the hangar and rocked on its springs as Jockey and Bryce, dwarfed by the hulking figure of Vatu, unloaded their kit. The other members of Blue team were already bombed-up. They checked the whiteboards to see what extra kit they were going to need.
Ashton strode over to Gavin’s table. The 3 i/c was at yet another whiteboard, filling in details of which call-sign would do what on-target. It was pretty basic stuff, so he kept writing while he briefed the boss on the ER – which didn’t take long because he still had very little to go on. All they could do was smash, bang, and try to control whatever they came up against.
Ashton glanced across at Woolf. ‘Looks like he did another fantastic job for us, then.’
Gavin shrugged. ‘Boss, to be fair to him, he was on a loser from the word go.’
Ashton looked sceptical. ‘Meaning what, exactly?’
‘Antonov has no real appetite for negotiation – or not yet, at any rate. He was obviously planning to drop another hostage right from the start. And with the shit that’s been going on down there, we might already have a lot more dead Yankees than we think.’
‘What about Buckingham? He made an appearance yet?’
Gavin shook his head. He felt-tipped another time on the whiteboard, then started writing up his orders. He’d have to keep a paper record, too. It was a legal requirement – to be kept in the operational folder along with the recorded radio traffic collated by the signallers and archived in the Hereford registry. If charged after the event by some Islington lawyer who wanted to make a name for himself, it was good to have this stuff up your sleeve to prove your innocence – but a nightmare if it showed otherwise.
Ashton leaned closer, though clearly irritated by the squeak of the pen and the chemical waft of the ink fumes. ‘You have contact with him? Any comms down there yet?’
Gavin shook his head again.
‘What about portable cell sites?’
‘We’ve tried, but still no luck. We need to move them closer, but can’t until we have some cover. I’m sending the snipers down as soon as they’re ready to CTR [close target recce] because I’ve got jack shit on the target. The sigs guys can follow behind with re-broadcasters.’
The team needed comms back to the hangar and COBRA. The re-broadcasters were suitcase-sized boxes of tricks with receivers and transmitters that picked up the team’s comms, bounced them back to the real world and, of course, brought their own secure comms into the tunnel. They also had a multi-band and network cellular capability.
‘All good. I agree. Antonov always planned to kill the Yankees. We have to assume he’s killed the French first responders too. We won’t know for sure until we’re down there – but the French have told us there’s not a squeak from them. They’re certainly not sending anyone else in until we’ve done our stuff. We know he won’t surrender. He’ll fight until he’s dead – which means more of our people getting malleted in the process.’
His expression became steelier.
‘I tell you what, Gavin, I don’t give a shit if he appears before the ICC. What I care about is keeping the team alive. I’m ordering you to make sure they’re absolutely clear in their heads that there must be no attempt to arrest this bastard. Kill him and keep safe.’ He paused, making sure they had eye-to-eye. He didn’t want any misunderstanding. ‘We must keep our people alive.’
Gavin didn’t need the point to be hammered home. ‘Boss, not a problem. I’ll brief the lads before they go on the ground. But where has this come from – you? I need to know I’m not going to be nailed to the wall if it gets out.’
‘You’ll have my backing every inch of the way.’ Ashton slowly straightened. ‘But we need control first.’
Woolf pulled off his headphones. ‘You have it. You have it from now. COBRA wants you to initiate the ER as soon as you can.’ He put aside his doodles, selected a fresh page in his A4 pad and started writing.
Gavin wasn’t impressed. ‘We need more time. There’s no CTR yet, no comms, no Red team. I need more guys on the ground.’
He could tell Woolf knew he was right, even though the MI5 man’s expression said, ‘You don’t always get what you want.’
‘It’s all yours.’ Woolf handed the sheet of A4 to Ashton. ‘Good luck.’
Ashton held it up for Gavin’s benefit: I hand over control pursuant to the provisions of the Military Aid to the Civil Power Act.J. Woolf
While Gavin drafted his ER, Ashton got busy with the team. ‘OK, Blue team, listen in! We have control. I say again, we have control. Let’s get moving!’
At almost the same moment, one of the Slime looked up from his monitor. ‘Look at the tunnel,’ he shouted. ‘We’ve got runners!’
Gavin grabbed his binoculars and ran to the hangar entrance just as two children emerged from the mouth of the service tunnel. The police ran forward and pulled them to safety, out of line-of-sight of any possible pursuit. They wrapped them in blankets and tried to hustle them away but Gavin could see that the taller of the two, a little girl, kept shaking her head. She pulled away from them, seemed to be repeating something to them, over and over again.
One of the Slime called. ‘Gavin, they’re holding a couple of kids. The girl keeps saying she’s got something for you and she won’t speak to anyone else.’
‘Get them up here, then.’
Less than a minute later a policeman ushered the two children into the hangar. The little boy, tear-tracks streaking the dirt on his face, clung tightly to his sister’s hand and kept his head down, staring at the floor in front of his feet. The girl looked uncertainly from one face to another.
‘Hello, I’m Gavin.’ He smiled, thinking for a moment of his own kids. ‘What’s your name?’
‘What sort of Gavin are you?’ She stared at him warily. ‘He told me only to speak to Gavin Marks, no one else.’
Gavin squatted in front of them. ‘That’s me. I’m Gavin. Who was it who told you?’ His voice was gentle, his eyes kind.
‘The man in the tunnel.’ The girl pointed back towards its entrance as if no one here had the first idea what she was on about.
He gave an encouraging smile as the boy finally raised his head. ‘We were on a train to Disneyland.’
The girl still hesitated, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, then, reassured by Gavin’s smile, she took a slim, bright pink sleeve from her pocket. ‘My name’s Rose. My brother’s called Daniel. He told me to give you this.’
‘Thank you, Rose. You two have been really, really brave.’
Gavin took the iPod and was about to switch it on when he realized that neither of the kids had moved. Just as he looked up again, the little boy launched himself at the 3i/c, threw his arms around Gavin’s neck and burst into tears.
Rose stayed where she was. ‘They killed our mummy with a gun.’ Finally, the tears started to pour down her cheeks as well.
Gavin caught the look of pain in Ashton’s eye, and the look of helpless embarrassment in Woolf’s. He gave Daniel a hug, and opened his oth
er arm to Rose. The story spilled out, each sentence punctuated by racking sobs.
After a couple of minutes he gently disengaged himself, explained that he had to upload the iPod, so he could try to help his friend Tom stop the bad men hurting any other mummies. He watched as the kids were led back out of the hangar towards a waiting ambulance. Poor little mites. Their lives had been completely devastated within a couple of hours. They had no mother, their father no wife, and years of coming to terms not only with their loss but also the nightmares and flashbacks of her being killed in front of their eyes.
The iPod screen filled with the first of the photographs. Gavin flicked through to the end of the album, then triggered the voice memo.
As he listened to Tom shouting above the gunfire, he broke into a grin for the first time that day. ‘Tom Buckingham . . .’ He gave a low whistle. ‘You are one magnificent fucking bastard.’
76
THE OBJECT OF that admiration was still crouching in the darkness. Tom watched through the carriage windows, in the dim glow of the emergency lighting, as one of Laszlo’s crew dragged something heavy along the aisle. The man’s shoulders jerked from side to side as he shuffled backwards with his load.
Then Laszlo himself came into the picture. By the far end of the second coach he was just a pace behind whoever was being dragged. Tom was in no doubt about the purpose of this performance. Laszlo wanted everyone to see the body, to smell the blood it smeared along the passageway. Pour encourager les autres . . . It was an all-too-visible warning to the surviving passengers of the fate that might await them.
Tom followed in the shadows, searching constantly for Delphine. As Laszlo and his shuffling sidekick reached the third carriage – the last one occupied – he took a deep breath and tried to cut away from the thought that he might already have found her.
The body of a white-haired old man tumbled like a rag doll through the remains of the door at the far end of the carriage, and hit the concrete with a dull thud no more than three metres from Tom’s hiding place. Ashamed that his first reaction was relief rather than anger, Tom looked up as Laszlo pulled Colin, the head steward, away from his stress position against the first window.