Nine Lives

by Tom Barber

  Grabbing the wire at the same moment, Chalky squeezed his eyes shut and yanked the phone from the cord, as hard as he could.

  He froze.

  Waited.

  Nothing.

  No explosion.

  A split second later, a shrill ringtone echoed around the shopping centre. It was coming from the phone, it purred and danced in his palm as it vibrated from an incoming call. The young police officer looked at the caller ID.

  Private Number, it said.

  Without a thought, he pressed Answer, putting the phone to his ear.

  Silence.

  Whoever was on the other end wasn’t expecting to talk.

  Chalky heard a rustle, and someone breathing.

  Listening.

  ‘Too late,’ Chalky told them quietly.

  He heard a sharp intake of breath.

  Then whoever was on the other end hung up.

  TEN

  The threat passed, Chalky sat back on his heels. He realised he was panting like a dog as his body tried to suck oxygen back into his lungs to counteract all the adrenaline pumping through his veins. Without the phone attached, the explosives in the bags were safe. They no longer had a detonating charge. He turned to Mac and Archer across the tier, both of them were ducked behind cover, but both had watched him yank the cord and heard the phone.

  ‘We’re good,’ Chalky called.

  There was the sound of running feet nearby from the Parkfield Street side, three members of the EOD, the bomb disposal unit, appeared. Finally, they’d arrived. One of them was in a thick green blast suit, pulling a helmet into place as he rushed across the level as fast as he could. He saw Chalky sitting relaxed by the device and ran over awkwardly, as quick as the bulky suit would allow. Arriving, he knelt beside the policeman in front of the bags. He examined the explosives and the wires, a trained eye compared to Chalky’s. There was a pause. However, soon after, he looked up and unclipped his helmet, turning to the other men and giving a thumbs up.

  ‘We’re good. It’s safe,’ he called. Turning to Chalky, he offered his hand. The policeman shook it and rose, turning to walk away from the bar, the mobile phone still in his hand. Across the level Archer was livid, and moved around the tier to meet him.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ he asked, furious. ‘You trying to get us killed?’

  Chalky tossed him the phone, ignoring his friend’s anger. ‘You’re welcome,’ he said.

  Just as Archer prepared to take it further, Porter appeared behind them from the stairs.

  ‘Sarge!’ he called to Mac, who turned. ‘You need to come and see this.’

  Mac nodded, and motioned to Archer and Chalky to leave. They moved to the stairs, Archer still glaring with fury at the back of Chalky’s head. He was pissed. Porter looked at them all sweating, then over at the relaxed bomb disposal team who were starting to pack away the C4 into a secure case.

  ‘Did I miss something?’ he asked.

  Downstairs, the building’s security monitor room was just like any other. It was a basic set-up, a lone swivel chair and a series of small screens stacked on top of each other, each shot showing a different angle of the shopping mall. Judging from the angle on two of the screens, cameras were also mounted outside the building, one facing Parkfield Street and the other facing Upper Street. One of Pierce’s security guards had been brought back into the building and was sitting in the chair, operating the system. Behind him, the four police officers and Pierce had gathered, crowding around his shoulders to get a good view of the monitors. Porter reached forward and tapped a monitor, turning to Mac.

  ‘Watch this.’

  The guard pushed Play, as the group of men watched closely.

  It was a view of the Upper Tier, looking down the level towards Parkfield Street. The bar was at the top left of the screen, people were flooding the tier, most of them strolling up and moving into the pub.

  But a lone figure was standing outside, no one around him, smoking. And the two black bags were resting by his feet. Taking a draw from the cigarette, the guy turned to look down the galleria. His face was straight-on to the camera.

  ‘Pause,’ said Porter.

  The guard hit the button.

  ‘See?’

  The men looked closer. Lighting from the bar was illuminating the guy’s face, but the shot was pretty grainy.

  ‘Can you enhance it?’ Mac asked the guard in the chair. The guy nodded and tapped some buttons. A white square suddenly appeared on the screen, framing the man’s face. It rendered for a few seconds. Then the face reappeared in the box, much closer. There was a moment’s silence as each man peered closer. Mac unzipped a pocket on his tac vest, and pulled out a sheet of paper. The pictures of the nine terrorists. He looked at the screen, then at the page, and tapped one of the photographs.

  ‘Son of a bitch. Bull’s-eye.’

  The other men looked at the page. Archer instantly saw who it was.

  Number Eight.

  ‘Keep running the tape,’ said Porter.

  The guard in the chair hit two buttons. The white square around the terrorist’s head vanished, and the shot was back to normal size. He pressed Play and the tape continued to roll. Number Eight continued to smoke. He then seemed to cock his head to the side, staring into the bar. Something inside had caught his attention. The television screens, Archer thought. After a spell, the guy flicked away his cigarette and checked his watch. Turning, he started walking away, leaving the two bags behind.

  ‘Stop,’ said Archer. The guard hit Pause. ‘What time is that?’ The guard in the chair tapped the bottom right corner of the screen.

  ‘Just before six. See?’

  Archer looked closer. A small digital clock was tucked into the bottom corner of the shot, showing hours, minutes and seconds that constantly ticked over in white letters as it matched the action on screen. It read 5:59:04 pm. Archer nodded. ‘Just after the explosion,’ he said. Around him, the other men nodded. The guard pushed Play again. The group watched as the terrorist walked down the tier, the camera was positioned on the wall so that he moved straight towards and under it. He passed under the camera and disappeared out of sight.

  ‘Shit,’ said Mac. ‘Where’d he go?’

  ‘Hang on, sir,’ said the guard. ‘Here,’ he added, tapping another screen and pressing a button. Right on cue, Number Eight reappeared under the camera, his back to the shot. It was a view of Upper Street, the camera mounted high on the wall and facing the ground level, so the guy must have used the stairs to exit the galleria. They watched as he crossed the road. It was a dark December evening, which meant most of the other people walking by the shot were just black silhouettes, momentarily lit up by a shop’s lights or a street lamp. However, the shadowy figure they were watching ended up stopping on the kerb under a lamp-post.

  Beside an ambulance.

  They watched as he disappeared around the far side of the vehicle. After a moment, a figure appeared in the driver’s seat.

  ‘What the hell?’ said Pierce. ‘Is he a medic?’

  The tape continued to play. The shadow disappeared into the back of the vehicle, and nothing happened for a spell. But after a while, the terrorist reappeared. He’d changed his clothes. ‘Are those medical scrubs?’ Archer asked, thinking out loud. He looked closer. They were. On the screen, the man pulled a phone from his pocket. A pedestrian walking past stopped beside him. They seemed to have a brief exchange, but then the other guy walked off. The man turned to his attention back to the phone in his hands, then disappeared around the far side of the ambulance.

  Suddenly, Mac realised something and looked down at the clock in the corner of the screen. It was just after 6:11 pm.

  Ten minutes ago.

  ‘Son of a bitch is outside!’ Mac shouted as he grabbed his MP5 and ran for the door.

  ‘Wait, Sarge!’ called Porter. By the exit, Mac turned, his hand on the door handle. The group watched on the screen as the figure reappeared in the driver’s seat. The lights
to the vehicle suddenly turned on, and pulling away from the kerb, he disappeared into the night. As he left, a black van suddenly screeched into shot, zooming past him. EOD was printed on the side, the bomb disposal team.

  ‘Shit,’ cursed Mac, re-joining the group. ‘Shit, shit, shit. We lost him. He was just outside.’

  ‘Yeah, but we could never have known that,’ said Archer. Beside him, Porter was frowning, thinking hard.

  ‘But where did he go?’ he asked. ‘And why in an ambulance? The hospital maybe?’

  Archer had an idea. He tapped the monitor, turning to the security guard. ‘Can you rewind and get a read on those plates?’ he asked. The guy nodded. He pressed a button and the action started reversing, the ambulance reappearing and pulling back into the slot as people on the street moved backwards. The guard paused the shot perfectly, just as the vehicle was pulling out. Seeing as the camera shot was side-on, it was the only moment on the tape that the plates were visible. Archer reached onto his tac vest, and pulled a mobile phone from a Velcro slot beside his left collarbone. Each man had one, it gave them fast and instant communication to Nikki’s private line inside the ops room. He pushed Redial. The call rang twice, then connected.

  ‘Hello?’ came Nikki’s voice.

  ‘Nikki it’s Archer. Can you do me a favour?’

  ‘Sure, Arch. Go ahead.’

  ‘I need you to check the Met’s database and see if any ambulances have been reported missing,’ he said. He pushed a button, holding the phone up so the room could hear. ‘You’re on speaker-phone,’ he told her. There was a moment’s pause. They could hear computer keys being tapped at the other end. Soon after, she came back.

  ‘Funny you asked, Arch,’ Nikki said, her voice filling the room. ‘A medic from St Mary’s called the Met not twenty minutes ago. She said an ambulance and two of her friends hadn’t shown up for work.’

  The men looked at each other.

  ‘Did she give the plates?’ Archer continued. There was another brief pause.

  ‘Yep. KV81 4MG.’

  Together, all six pairs of eyes checked the screen.

  It was a perfect match.

  ‘Right. Thanks, Nikki,’ Archer said, ending the call and putting the phone back in its sleeve on his uniform.

  ‘Well there’s our missing ambulance,’ said Porter. To his left, he noticed Archer was staring at the screen intently, thinking hard, a look in his eye. ‘What are you thinking, Arch?’ Porter asked.

  The blond man frowned.

  ‘I’m thinking about the guys we picked up in the raid earlier. And the difference here. The stuff in the bags outside the bar, that’s not ball-bearings and bleach. This guy wasn’t eating cereal and snorting coke when we found him.’

  He tapped his finger on the ambulance on the screen. ‘We’re dealing with a whole new level of intelligence here.’

  ‘And?’ asked Pierce. Archer looked at him.

  ‘Let’s be logical. Why didn’t he strap the bomb to his chest? Why detonate remotely?’

  The group thought for a moment.

  ‘So he could walk away,’ Mac said.

  Porter nodded. ‘And so he could do it again,’ he added.

  Silence.

  ‘Do you reckon there could be more C4 inside the vehicle?’ Porter asked the room.

  ‘Let’s suppose for a moment that there is,’ Archer said. ‘If you were a bomber with an ambulance full of explosives, where would you go?’

  ‘Somewhere with a crowd,’ Pierce said, without hesitation.

  Frustrated, Mac swore, confused and angry.

  ‘Shit. OK, so where?’ he asked.

  And right then as a room, the penny dropped.

  All six of them realised at the same time, like six light-bulbs were just plugged into the national grid.

  Pierce went to confirm out loud where the guy was headed.

  But the four ARU officers were already running for the door.

  Just over three miles away, Number Eight hit the steering wheel of the ambulance in frustration. Traffic to the Emirates was jammed tight both ways. He was getting impatient. Looking down, he saw a button by the radio console that he’d switched off to avoid communication. He pressed it, curious.

  And all of a sudden, the siren on the roof started blaring and wailing, startling him. However, he watched as the other vehicles in front of him suddenly parted like the Red Sea for Moses.

  Behind the wheel, the terrorist took his chance and accelerated through the new gap made for him.

  He smiled.

  He could ride like this all the way to the stadium car park.

  But the man was completely unaware that at that moment, he was already being followed.

  In a car twenty yards behind, a woman cursed as she saw the ambulance speed off. She was the one who’d been taking the surveillance shots outside the raided house earlier in the day, the photographs of the armed police officers and the suspects. Ahead, the traffic light was staying red. She took the opportunity to pull a phone from her pocket, pushing Redial. The call rang twice, then connected.

  ‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘Good news. I found one of them. I’m going to make an approach’.

  There was a grunt at the end of the phone.

  ‘Well done. And good luck.’

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ she said, ending the call as the light changed to green.

  Taking off the handbrake, she went as fast as she could in pursuit of the ambulance. She didn’t need to see the vehicle anymore. She knew where it was headed.

  She just prayed she’d make it in time.

  Back at the stadium, the other ARU officers were finally starting to get a hold on the situation. Most of the critically wounded had been taken to hospital or were on their way there. The crowd had thinned and was relatively calmer. However, hundreds of emergency workers, the injured and police were still streaming all over the place, and they weren’t going anywhere for a while. In the middle of the crowd, Fox spotted Deakins helping an injured woman into an ambulance. Tucking his sub-machine gun behind his arm, he jogged over, providing an extra pair of hands. At that moment, the earpiece tucked inside his ear went off. It was Mac’s voice. He sounded frantic.

  ‘Deaks? Fox? Answer! Someone from Team Two answer!’

  Closing the doors to the ambulance, Fox looked at Deakins, confused. The headsets covered a distance of seven miles, which is why each man had a mobile phone attached to his vest. They must have been within range, coming back from the shopping centre. Fox pushed the pressel switch on his uniform.

  ‘We’re here, Mac. Go ahead,’ he said.

  ‘We think Number Eight is on his way to you,’ Mac said. ‘He’s in a stolen ambulance, possibly containing explosives.’

  Deakins and Fox looked at each other.

  Oh shit.

  Around the car park, the other officers heard this exchange through their earpiece, they all froze momentarily. Mac’s voice continued.

  ‘All of you, start searching ambulances,’ he ordered. ‘Forget the wounded for now. I want you checking every single one. He could already be there. And get everyone the hell back.’

  Deakins looked around. He pressed the switch.

  ‘Mac, there’re ambulances everywhere here.’

  ‘I don’t care, just do it! The plates begin KV8, I repeat KV8! Find that ambulance, lads. We’ll be there any minute.’

  And the radio went dead.

  At the moment Mac’s voice dropped off, the stolen vehicle turned into the car park for the stadium. Number Eight had turned the siren off to avoid drawing any unnecessary attention to the vehicle, and he felt a shiver of excitement as he entered the parking lot for the first time. He was worried it might have emptied slightly, but he could see scores of people still here. Close to two hundred, at least. Moving forward slowly, he crept to a stop. He was still outside the crowd, twenty yards from the main mass of people. It didn’t matter. The blast would kill every single one of them, with change. He turned the engine off and
stepped out, locking the door. Turning, the man ducked his head and started walking away from the crowd.

  Over his shoulder, a male medic in his mid-twenties was looking frantically for an ambulance. He had an injured man leaning against him, groaning in pain. He’d seen the new vehicle arrive, so he approached and tried the door, it was locked. He saw the driver striding away, fifty yards across the tarmac, walking alone.

  ‘Hey!’ he called after him. ‘Hey, you!’

  The guy didn’t respond. The medic watched in disbelief as the guy seemed to pick up the pace, walking even faster away from him. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He shouted again.

  ‘Hey! I need some help over here!’

  The guy didn’t turn around or even acknowledge him. Helping the wounded man to sit on the kerb, the medic looked around for assistance. He saw an armed policeman with his back turned, ten yards away, and approached him.

  ‘Officer?’

  ‘Not now, mate,’ the guy said, without turning. Undeterred, the young man tried again.

  ‘Sorry to bother you. But there’s a driver over there who just walked away from his ambulance. He won’t even respond to me, and he heard me shouting. He locked it up and just left.’ For some reason, that got the policeman’s attention. He snapped his head around to look at the medic.

  ‘I’ve got a wounded man. I need to get him out of here’ the medic continued.

  The policeman ignored him.

  ‘Which man?’ he asked, grabbing the young man.

  He turned and pointed. Deakins saw a man in green scrubs, jogging towards the far side of the car park.

  Oh shit.

  Number Eight was already three hundred yards from the ambulance. He turned, looking over his shoulder.

  He saw a policeman sprinting after him. The guy had a machine gun in his hands. And he was gaining. Shit.

  The terrorist started running too, racing ahead as he pulled the phone from his pocket. He started typing the number as he fled. From this distance, the blast would kill him, he’d been planning to detonate it from far, far away. But he was OK with that. So be it, he thought, as he ducked behind a lorry. I’ll take them all with me.