by Andy Maslen
“I’m afraid it was. It was bad. Really, very bad.”
“Ought to shoot the bloody bastards what done it, ’scuse my French, sir.”
Yes. You’ve definitely seen a parade ground from the front.
“But that’s the trouble, isn’t it? We don’t know who did it, do we?”
“No, we don’t. But I reckon you and Colonel Webster are going to sort it out, sir.”
Gabriel wondered how much his driver knew about Don and The Department.
“So, do you work directly for Colonel Webster, then?” he said. “Sorry, I don’t know your name. And you can drop the ‘sir’ bit, by the way. Gabriel’s fine by me.”
“Very good, sir. Gabriel, I mean. Since you ask, it’s Tony, and yes I do know Colonel Webster quite well. Been driving him for the last two years, and I was fortunate enough to serve under him before he transferred into The Regiment. As I believe you did? Once he took over 22 SAS, I mean?”
“That’s right. But you’re OK being a driver after all that action?”
“Oh, not really. I’d much rather be out there taking it to the enemy, if you know what I mean. But the wife, she’s much happier now I’ve got what you might call a steady job. Regular hours, most of the time. Home for tea, game of golf at the weekend, that sort of thing.”
Gabriel thought of his cottage in a village just outside Salisbury. He hadn’t been home for tea in a while. A lot of travel. A lot of hotels. A recent trip to Estonia on what he had been asked to call “government business”. He found he didn’t mind.
As the car moved slowly through the traffic towards Parliament Square before turning left into Whitehall, he watched a group of protesters, waving placards and yelling about human rights and how the police, the Army, the government, and essentially everybody in Britain not actively marching should be ashamed. And he wondered idly how they’d be treated in some of the countries where he’d run covert operations. Funny how the people who criticised the UK from the heart of its democracy could only do so in safety because of the very political system they seemed to hate.
As a soldier, he’d ignored politics almost as a duty. You served your country through its elected politicians and if they said, “Come on, chaps, we’re at war again, go over to Country X and shoot the shit out of them,” well, that’s what you did. But now he was a civilian, even if his particular brand of Civvy Street still seemed to involve a great deal of automatic weapons and sneaking around after dark in camouflage. And he had begun to question things. After the morning’s outrage, one of the things he was beginning to question was the right of anyone to stay free and alive while planning and executing—apposite word—horrific crimes of mass murder against innocent civilians.
His train of thought was derailed by the driver’s turning left into a short road that ended in a pair of wrought-iron gates. There were a couple of guardsmen on duty beside the gates, resplendent in black trousers with razor-sharp creases, round-toed boots so shiny you could shave in them, scarlet dress jackets bedecked with gold buttons, and, of course, those ridiculous bearskins—almost two feet of glossy fur hat that took the average wearer to almost eight feet in height. They carried SA80 assault rifles with short, sharp-pointed bayonets fixed below the muzzles. But it was the unobtrusive brick office to the side and rear of the gates that held the real power to defend the building beyond.
Inside sat two men manning remote-controlled cameras with infrared capability. Each was dressed in dark clothes, nothing that would make them stand out on any London street. Each carried an array of weapons that would make short work of anyone foolish enough to try to gain entry without an extremely good reason and some very good credentials. Slung across their chests, each carried a Heckler & Koch MP5K submachine gun, their box magazines loaded with thirty 9 x 19mm Parabellum rounds. They wore shoulder holsters housing Glock 17 semi-automatic pistols, also chambered with the 9mm Parabellum rounds. They carried Special Forces ceramic knives in ankle sheaths. And each had his own SA80 assault rifle clipped into a steel rack on the back wall of the building, ready to rock with a magazine containing thirty 5.56 x 45mm NATO rounds.
If pressed, a large red button on the security console on the desk in front of them would trigger a range of countermeasures designed to thwart any attempt at forced entry.
Within fractions of a second, three circular steel columns, each measuring two feet from base to top and one foot in diameter, would spring from their flush-mounted silos in the road surface behind the wrought-iron gates, propelled by air rams each capable of exerting enough force to lift a three-tonne truck right off the ground.
Two miniguns, more often deployed on Apache gunship helicopters, were mounted in stainless steel housings high on the walls looking down onto the short length of road that led from the gates to the front door of the building. They were mounted with infrared and heat-seeking targeting software and loaded with High Explosive Incendiary Armour Piercing rounds—HEIAP in the jargon. If somehow a terrorist vehicle managed to defeat the steel barrier posts, the miniguns would whirr and swivel into action. They’d track the heat signature of the engine and unleash a hail of 7.62mm calibre bullets that would literally shred a car—even one with armoured bodywork—into fragments of torn and ruptured metal and plastic. As for the occupants, the six-thousand-rounds-per-minute rate of fire would reduce them to little more than mince.
Assuming that even this barrage was insufficient to defeat the insurgents, the men in the office were authorised to use deadly force. Shoot to kill, in other words. And they would. Efficiently. Unemotionally. And with ruthless determination.
Why all this security for a bunch of civil servants?
Because this particular complex of buildings housed the meeting rooms where the prime minister of the day convened the country’s most senior law enforcement, military, and counterintelligence officers in the event of a crisis deemed to be a clear and present danger to the security of the United Kingdom.
Gabriel reached to his throat to straighten his tie, realised he was still wearing the borrowed clothes from the safe house, and let his hand fall to his lap again.
“Well, sir. Sorry, Gabriel. Here we are. If you’d just wait in the car, I’ll sort out our clearance to proceed.”
The driver strolled past the left-hand guardsman and knocked on the street-side door of the brick office. Gabriel watched as the green-painted door opened just enough to admit him before closing again.
Thirty seconds passed. Then another thirty. His pulse ratcheted up, and he closed his eyes and breathed slowly to lower it again.
Just as he was wondering whether there’d been a mix-up and the meeting with the prime minister was on a different day, or in a different part of the country, the door opened and the driver walked back to the car. His face was expressionless as he opened the door and climbed in. He turned round in his seat.
“All done. Just a little hiccup with the computer. Apparently the Colonel or his secretary had you down as Wolf without the ‘e’. You’d think that wouldn’t matter, but you know what computers are. Now, we’ll drive in, then you have to present yourself back at the office there to have your mugshot done and your security pass issued. I’ve to wait in the courtyard, which is fine by me. I’ve got a book to finish. The Thirty-Nine Steps. Very good boys’ own adventure, if you need a recommendation.”
The wrought-iron gates swung inwards and Tony eased the Jaguar into the courtyard, stopping just a few feet beyond the gates, which clanged shut behind them.
Five minutes later, Gabriel was walking towards the double doors of the building at the rear of the courtyard, a laminated ID bearing his pixelated face swinging from a pea-green lanyard round his neck. The day was still warm and he could feel the sweat under his arms beginning to roll down the inside of his shirt. London Planetrees fringed the courtyard, their mottled bark reminiscent of World War I camouflage patterns: tessellated irregular ovals in shades of sage green, dove grey, and beige.
At the black-painted door, he
stopped, glancing around for a bell push or intercom. There was neither. He looked up. A white camera aimed at his face winked its red operating light as if to say hello.
Just as he was wondering how he was to gain entry, the door opened. A young woman appeared, mid-twenties he judged from the clarity and smoothness of her complexion. She, too, bore one of the laminated IDs around her long neck, which emerged from a scarlet polo-neck jumper made of some fine wool or perhaps silk. Expensive, anyway. Her tortoiseshell glasses magnified her brown eyes and gave her an owlish look.
“You must be Gabriel,” she said with a smile. “Please follow me. The prime minister is expecting you.”
Gabriel realised he had only ever seen the prime minister on TV or from a great distance on various military parades. As Secretary of State for Defence, she had once flown to Iraq when he had been stationed there. At the time, he was on a close target reconnaissance of a tribal warlord’s compound many miles from the camp, so he had missed her visit altogether. Apparently she’d been a great hit with the lads, sharing some decidedly un-ministerial humour in her flat Yorkshire accent and also some beer she’d brought with her in specially cooled packaging.
A while back, he had helped to save her life from domestic terrorists, but the whole affair had been hushed up, and as soon as the dust had settled, he had disappeared back into the anonymity that Don Webster insisted on as a condition of his employing Gabriel on continuing covert missions for The Department.
He stopped for a moment to look at a portrait of Winston Churchill hanging on the wall between two closed doors. Then he hurried to catch up with his guide, though not so quickly he didn’t have time to take in the shapely curves of her bottom in her tight-fitting tweed skirt.
Ahead, a door opened and the buzz of conversation drifted towards him. A loud and unmistakable laugh erupted from the room inside, and then out stepped the most powerful woman in the UK: Barbara Sutherland.
10
The COBRA Wakes
BLACK STILETTO HEELS CLICKING, BARBARA Sutherland emerged from the meeting room, turned left, and strode towards Gabriel. Somehow, he had imagined she’d look grim-faced. Instead, her wide mouth, highlighted with her trademark slash of deep-red lipstick, was smiling. She stuck out her hand as she reached him. He shook it, reflexively.
“Well, well, here’s my knight in shining armour,” she said, her flat Yorkshire vowels sounding a challenge to the centuries of deference and privilege woven into the very fabric of the building they stood in. “Gabriel Wolfe, I think I owe you a bloody big hug and a couple of bottles of something expensive from the cellar in Number Ten.”
The second surprise: after waving his owl-eyed escort away, causing the chunky gold bracelets on her right wrist to clank together, she grabbed hold of him and pulled him into an embrace, patting him on the back, and kissing him on the cheek for good measure.
When she let him go, his cheeks were flaring with a rush of blood. Being cuddled by prime ministers was not an activity his years in the SAS had prepared him for. In her heels, she was an inch or so taller than Gabriel and, he realised, very attractive. Slate-blue eyes, long dark lashes, and a strong straight nose.
“Oh, look, I’ve disconcerted you. Sorry. Come on,” she said, all business, now, “there are a couple of people I’d like you to meet.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, Prime Minister, why were you laughing in there? When I arrived, I mean?”
“Thought I should have been crying, did you? Rending my garments, tearing my hair?”
Wrong-footed again, and starting to understand how this formidable woman from Yorkshire farming stock had risen to the top, Gabriel tried to explain.
“It’s not that. I mean you just seemed, I don’t know, happy. I can’t see much to laugh about.”
She paused, her hand on the doorknob, and turned to him, face stern now, dark eyes boring into his.
“Since I took office, Gabriel, we’ve lost a couple of dozen troops in various operations around the world. Our embassy in Tehran was firebombed. That maniac in Glasgow took out nineteen people with his articulated lorry on a crowded shopping street. I had to visit the scene of the Birmingham school fire, the Felixstowe chemical plant explosion, and, oh yes, I attended the funerals of those little Asian girls taken by that paedophile ring. If I didn’t find a little shred of humour amidst the dark, you know what? I think yours truly would go completely, fucking mad with grief.”
She shook her head as if trying to dislodge those bleak memories, then tucked her hair behind her ears.
“I’m sorry, Prime Minister. I didn’t mean to say that you weren’t, you know, your empathy—everyone says that about you. But …”
She put a steadying hand on his shoulder.
“It’s OK. We’re going to nail the bastard or bastards who did this to us. And you’re going to help. Now,” she changed her tone to one of brisk efficiency, “let’s introduce you to the others, shall we?”
The room looked like a corporate boardroom, complete with a bank of screens mounted on the far wall. This was one of the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms, referred to by the media, and apparently the PM herself, as COBRA. Seated around the table in the windowless room were four people, two of whom he recognised, two of whom he did not.
Barbara Sutherland took the seat at the head of the table and motioned for Gabriel to sit to her left.
“Well, lady and gentlemen, let’s begin. We’ve got a few things to get through this afternoon, and I don’t know about you, but I could really use a drink. So, to business. Let’s start with introductions.”
She turned to her right.
“Justine, for the record, would you mind giving us your full name and job title?”
The woman, one of the two people Gabriel recognised, had the bright, professional smile of the seasoned politician. The corners of her eyes were fanned with crow’s feet, the lines between the wings of her nose and the outer corners of her mouth deeply grooved. A helmet of brassy blonde hair framed her face.
“Hello, Gabriel. I’m Justine Creech, Home Secretary.”
“Hi. I did, you know, recognise you anyway.” Trying to break the ice here. Feeling a little out of my comfort zone.
“Well, that’s a relief,” she said. “No need to fire my press secretary, then?”
That did the trick. Everyone laughed and from then on the atmosphere changed to a more collegial feeling. The man to Creech’s right, an ugly brute with thick, coarse features and the florid complexion of a heavy drinker, turned to Gabriel. He was squat, a waistcoat adorned with a gold watch-chain stretched tight across his belly.
“Gregor Standing. Head of the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorism Division. Used to call me ‘Last Man’ in the Guards.”
Across the table from Standing were two more men. Don spoke next.
“Don Webster, as I think you know, Old Sport. Head of The Department.” Gabriel took in his former commander’s appearance, once again. Greying hair cut short, grey chain-store suit, no scars, tattoos or other identifying marks, and an avuncular bearing more like that of the headmaster of a provincial prep school than a deadly security organisation buried deep within the British defence apparatus.
Last to speak was a man of such bland appearance, he could have run up to you in the street brandishing a machine gun and five minutes later, you’d have had no idea what he looked like. Mousy hair with a side-parting, mid-brown eyes, a pleasant smile. Identikit spook was Gabriel’s initial assessment. Not far off as it turned out.
“Andrew Jeavons. Director, MI5.”
OK, so you run the counter-spooks, but close enough.
Gabriel felt the eyes of the room on him. He swallowed.
“Gabriel Wolfe. I, that is, my firm is Wolfe and Cunningham. We’re independent security consultants, but I seem to be working for Don, I mean Colonel Webster, a lot these days.”
“Blimey, Gabriel,” the prime minister said, “If that’s your elevator pitch, love, it’s a miracle you’re making eno
ugh to live on.”
More laughter. Gabriel felt able to join in, just. He noticed the others kept looking at him—not quite in the eye, off to one side a little. It made him uncomfortable, and he looked down at the polished table top, running a hand through his short black hair as he did so.
“One other thing, if I may, Prime Minister,” Don said. She nodded. “Gabriel seems to have caught a bad habit from Tony, my driver. For the record, I’m no longer a colonel, as I think you all know. Wouldn’t want anyone thinking I was trying to wheedle my way back into uniform.”
“Thanks, Don. Noted,” Sutherland said. “Perhaps we should all switch to first names to avoid any hemming and hawing over how to address each other. Agreed?”
There were mumbles of assent from the table.
Gabriel looked up again. Noticed there was a seventh person at the table. Nodded at Smudge, who nodded back.
“Good!” Barbara said, brightly. “So, we have a problem, which can be summed up as, some fucking psychopath terrorist set off a ball-bearing bomb on a packed London bus this morning, killed about fifty of our people and maimed dozens more. And I want him—or her,” she looked at Creech, “found. And stopped. Permanently.”
She glared round the table, taking a moment to let her eyes rest on each person in turn. They all returned her stare with level gazes.
“Just to be clear, Barbara,” the Home Secretary said, glancing at her then across at Gabriel again, with a slight smirk, “we’re talking about an Executive Order here?”
“Yes, Justine, that is exactly what we’re talking about.” She turned to Gabriel and smiled. But it was the sort of smile a crocodile makes before eating something four-legged, up to its neck in a muddy brown river and whinnying in terror. “In the US, my counterpart has the power to authorise surgical strikes against enemies deemed so dangerous to the American people that no judicial oversight for the decision to terminate them is required.” She paused. “Or to put that into words my dad would understand, he gets to take out the evil bastards on his own account. Judge, jury, and executioner. Nothing secret about it, either. He’s done it one hundred and eighty-nine times since the start of last year. Freedom of Information. It’s all there on the web.”