Nine Lives

by Tom Barber

  Rivers swore. ‘Look, if we hadn’t come down, we never would have found her,’ he replied, pointing at the dead girl. ‘And remember that Crawford has shared all that information with you. No one said he had to.’

  Mac glared at him, then pulled the photocopy from the pocket of his tac vest.

  ‘OK. He’s your problem now,’ he told Rivers with venom. ‘If you lot lose him, you can find him. So let’s move on to the other three.’

  Rivers was standing close, but he’d stopped listening to the sergeant. He was staring at the sheet of paper in his hand instead.

  His eyes widened.

  ‘Oh my God,’ he said quietly.

  Back at the Heathrow Marriott, Number Six was confused. He was watching the news channel in his room, waiting for the first reports of an explosion at the airport. Rising, he pulled back the curtain to see if there was smoke coming from the direction of the Terminal building. But nothing. The bitch better not have failed, he thought. She probably had. The girl was useless. He didn’t know where Dom had picked her up, but she was sickeningly mawkish and sentimental towards him. Dom had used that infatuation and manipulated her though, to his credit. To be honest, she needed the help. He’d never seen someone so incapable of thinking for themself. She was soft and weak, and it was likely the airport police intervened or she found some other way to screw things up. But that doesn’t change shit here, he thought. Turning, he checked the clock on the desk by the bed.

  9:15 pm. Time to hit the roof.

  He reached behind the far side of the bed and with a grunt from the effort, pulled up a long dark case dumping it on the bed. It was about two feet in length, worn military casing that had probably been stacked under a tarpaulin in a desert somewhere for the past couple of years. He pulled a long black holdall from under the bed and started tucking the case into the bag. He didn’t want any other hotel guests to see what was printed on the side, in thick black letters.

  RPG-7. Rocket Launcher.

  He finished wrapping the bag around the case. Grabbing a thick coat, he pulled it on and zipped it up tight. It was cold outside, and the last thing he needed was any unnecessary shivering. He then picked up the strap for the bag and looped it over his shoulder. Turning, he moved to the door. He double-checked that he had everything he needed. He could never come back here. He was travelling light, he had clothes on his back and money in his wallet to get a taxi and disappear. Satisfied, he clicked off the light and departed.

  Outside the room, he walked swiftly down the corridor. A couple coming the other way were blocking his path. The two of them saw the guy with the big bag wasn’t going to stop, so the two of them had to press their backs flat against the wall to let him pass. Ignoring them, he stared with focus at the stairwell by the lifts.

  The only thing on his mind right now was getting to the roof.

  FIFTEEN

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Porter asked, behind the wheel of one of the squad cars. Rivers had grabbed him inside the Terminal and shouted that they needed to get back to the Marriott as fast as possible. Shapira had caught on fast and jumped in the back seat, equally puzzled by the American’s behaviour and unwilling to be left out.

  ‘One of the guys, Number Six. He was at the hotel! I ran into him upstairs.’

  Porter was on the main road now. He put his foot down and the car climbed past seventy as it roared past other traffic. ‘What? Where? Are you sure it was him?’

  ‘Positive. He’d shaved his head, so he looked different. But I saw his face. It’s him. He was on the top floor.’

  He thought for a moment, remembered something else. ‘Oh shit.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He was coming out from the stairwell when I bumped into him. He wasn't out of breath so he'd probably walked down, not up and we were on the top floor. So he must have been coming-’.

  ‘From the roof,’ finished Shapira.

  Porter checked the rear-view mirror. He saw another black Ford weaving in and out of traffic, following close behind. He guessed some of the other lads were inside. His suspicions were confirmed when the earpiece in his ear went off.

  ‘Port? It’s Fox. What the hell’s going on?’

  Port pushed the pressel on his uniform with one hand whilst keeping the other on the wheel.

  ‘I’m with Rivers. He thinks he saw Number Six at the hotel earlier. Apparently the guy was walking down the stairwell, coming from the door to the roof.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘He’s sure?’

  Porter didn’t reply. He turned a hard right, and the car raced down a side road towards the entrance to the Heathrow Marriott. Buses and slower moving cars flashed past the windows. ‘OK, so what was he doing on the roof?’ Porter asked, as the car screeched to a halt outside the hotel. ‘Do you think he’s still up there?’

  Rivers didn’t reply.

  He was already out the door and running through the entrance to the lobby.

  It had been Dom’s idea. The two of them were old friends, they’d met in a club in New York City a few years back. When Dom had been putting this plan together at the beginning of March, the young man’s phone in Brooklyn had rung. Not much had been revealed, but he’d picked up on what Dom was asking of him and the reward that would come his way if he did it. Without a moment’s hesitation the guy had packed his bags, jumped on a plane, and headed to London.

  Back in New York, his life was going nowhere and he knew it. He’d had some luck with a couple of low-level drug deals, but he was a small fish in a very big pond. He knew there was only so far he could go before the big sharks came swimming. When he got to London, Dom had put him up in the flat he was renting. He’d told him about the ideas for the attacks, why he’d had to flee New York so abruptly after what happened at the Four Seasons. How his uncle, Henry, hated the United Kingdom and everyone who lived here. The young man didn’t know much about Dom’s uncle, but he knew that he ran one of the most feared cartels in the Middle East. Dom had told him that if he helped him, Henry would be so delighted that he’d probably employ him. He’d be rich. Protected. Living in the sun. Far away from the Brooklyn back alleys and dark streets, selling rocks and angel dust to crack-heads and junkies.

  Dom had outlined his plan. It was solid. But there was a problem. The young man wasn’t prepared to go down the suicide bombing route. He wasn’t a fanatic and certainly didn’t intend to go out like that. He also didn’t have a clue what he was doing with explosives. But Dom had agreed with him that suicide bombing was retarded and that they would leave that to those who were stupid enough to do it.

  He’d come up with this plan instead.

  Take out a commercial jet.

  The younger man liked the idea. Once he fired the launcher, he’d be out of the hotel in less than a minute. Stay low, out of sight. Give it a couple of days, then get out of the country. Dom had promised he’d be in touch. After that, hopefully, he could meet with Henry and talk about a role in his business.

  Right now, he was already in position. He’d opened the door to the roof, closing it behind him and was now stood facing west. He was glad he’d worn the coat, it was a cold night. He lowered the case hanging from his shoulder to the ground and unzipped the bag, pushing the cloth back. Kneeling, he undid two clips and eased the lid open. It was an RPG, or Rocket-Propelled Grenade. The weapon was a Russian model, designed to take out tanks or low flying aircraft. Assembly of the weapon was simple. It was only two parts, the launcher and the rocket. He pulled the launcher from the black inner casing and lifted it to his shoulder. The weight felt good, it had a pistol grip for firing which he curled his fingers around, looking down the sight. The weapon was sleek and well-maintained, and he’d used it before. He knew it would be accurate.

  Carefully, he reached into the case and slid out the second part. The warhead. An armour-penetrating grenade propelled by a rocket. He tipped his shoulder and slid the missile into the front of the weapon. It locked into place with a click. Dom ha
d managed to get hold of some seriously high-quality equipment for the group. C4, RPGs, Semtex. But unfortunately, there was one disadvantage with the weapon resting on his shoulder. It wasn’t a heat-seeker. He’d have to hit first time, but then again, that wouldn’t be a problem. In practice runs against selected targets out on the empty moors in the Welsh countryside, the young man had proved extremely accurate with the launcher, much to his own surprise and pleasure. Dom reassured him it was equally effective against aircraft, despite being designed to take out a slow-moving tank. He’d informed him about the success of the weapon in Somalia in the early nineties. Apparently, rebels had used this weapon to take out two Black Hawk helicopters, which left the young man sufficiently impressed.

  But a noise jerked him back to the present. A plane was coming into view from the sky ahead, and from the left. It was three hundred yards away, descending from the dark ahead and to his left. The 9:20pm from New York, right on time. Full capacity.

  Over two hundred and fifty souls on board.

  He shifted his hips, letting the launcher slide snugly into place against his shoulder. He slowly rose to stand upright. He took long, deliberate breaths, trying to slow his heart rate. Putting his eye to the sight, he lined up the plane. He’d have to aim ahead of its flight path. But the jet was moving smoothly and predictably, five hundred metres away. The rocket would get there in three seconds.

  His finger fell back to rest on the trigger in the pistol-grip.

  This is it. Nice and slow.

  Taking a breath, he started squeezing the trigger gently.

  But there was a sudden noise behind him.

  The entrance to the roof burst open.

  He turned, with the weapon still against his shoulder. He couldn’t believe it.

  It was the American guy he’d bumped into on the corridor earlier. He had a pistol in his hand. The woman and some other cop were beside him. She was holding a pistol too, whilst the cop had an MP5 sub-machine gun. Shit. He saw all three of them momentarily freeze, as they realised what the situation was.

  Then their weapons all came up, sighted on the terrorist’s head.

  Number Six stood motionless, not intimidated, aiming the rocket launcher at them from ten feet away.

  ‘Drop it, asshole!’ the American guy shouted. The terrorist didn’t react. He wasn’t scared.

  ‘Put your guns down! If I push this button, you all die!’ he screamed back.

  None of them moved.

  It was a tense stand-off, except one of them had a rocket launcher.

  The young guy sensed the plane was approaching the runway behind him in the airfield. He could hear it.

  And in that moment, he realised he was done. There was no way out. He would never go to prison, so he had to make a choice.

  Three of them, or nearly three hundred of them.

  He decided.

  Suddenly, he turned in one swift motion.

  And the fearsome weapon swivelled towards the plane.

  After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, police around the world had developed various methods and tactics when confronting a suicidal terrorist. The UK had called theirs Operation Kratos. Members of the British government and police had visited Israel, Sri Lanka and Russia to consult with their security forces. Unlike the West, those nations had been accustomed to suicide bombing for many years and as a consequence, had devised systems of attack that were beginning to be used universally.

  Common themes had arisen. They’d found in most life or death situations any explosives a terrorist had control of were extremely sensitive to motion. Hence, the conventional tactic of shooting the chest was likely to cause a detonation via twitching or jerked reactions. Another key discovery had been that suicide bombers, if discovered prematurely by police, were more than likely to continue their attack regardless. Which meant stealth and covert tactics had to be in place to avoid police detection until it was too late for a terrorist to react.

  For Rivers, Shapira and Porter, the second finding wasn’t relevant here. Clearly, the guy knew all about their presence.

  But the first discovery was.

  The key to prevent any twitch or movement on a trigger or switch was to shoot the target through the brain stem, thus instantly severing any motor neurone activity. And that’s exactly what Shapira did.

  As the terrorist turned towards the plane with the rocket launcher, she was the first to react. The Mossad agent fired her pistol twice, a quick double-tap. Both shots took the guy in the lower portion of his neck, severing the stem. Blood and bone sprayed in the air, and he collapsed like a stone.

  But there was a problem. They’d waited a millisecond too late.

  Number Six’s finger was already moving on the trigger to launch the weapon.

  Fourteen pounds of grip pressure.

  That was all it needed.

  Deakins and Fox rushed into sight behind them. Together, the five of them watched in horror as a cloud of light-blue smoke erupted from the rear of the weapon. There was a loud whoosh as the rocket roared from the tube, and off into the air.

  Headed straight towards the airplane.

  It was going to be a direct hit. The rocket chewed through the air towards its target, moving at frightening speed. The five people on the roof stood helplessly as it roared towards the Boeing 757. The plane was about eighty feet off the runway. Even if the pilot saw the rocket by some freak miracle, he’d have no time to do anything about it. He was flying a commercial airliner, not a helicopter.

  But it missed by a whisker. Literally, a hair. It thundered under the belly of the plane and zoomed off into the middle of the airfield, away from its intended target and any other 'planes in the vicinity. The warhead ploughed on for another hundred and fifty yards, then self-detonated like a firework as the fuse inside reacted, exploding in the sky.

  Back on the roof, everyone stood still for a moment. Then they all sagged with relief. Porter shook his head.

  He was getting sick of this.

  At that precise moment across the Channel, another plane was just about to land. In the cool night air, two sets of wheels lowered from the undercarriage of the private jet. The pilot eased back on the throttle and the plane touched down lightly on the tarmac runway. It slowed and eventually came to a halt, turning and taxiing a short distance towards a waiting car. From his seat inside, Dominick took a deep breath. He’d made it. Looking out of the window, he saw a black Escalade waiting by the runway. Two large men were standing beside it. He didn’t recognise them. It seemed as if Henry had changed his entire crew since they’d lost contact. But then again, the man went through his security detail like a wolf chewed through a carcass. God only knew how many of them he’d killed over the years. They were too big to drown, so Henry often just machine-gunned them.

  Beyond the two men in the distance, Dominick could see the bright lights of Paris. French time was an hour ahead, so it was only an hour or so now to midnight. He could see the unmistakeable shape of the Eiffel Tower, golden with all its lights and no doubt dressed up with fireworks in preparation for the display that would bring in the New Year. But back in the cabin, Faris was already on his feet, swinging on his suit jacket which he’d laid to one side during the flight to avoid any creases. The pilot had pressed the mechanism in the cockpit to open the exit door, and the stairs to the jet unfurled slowly towards the tarmac runway. Faris went to move down the aisle, then turned and looked at Farha. He didn’t say anything. His face said it all.

  Get up and get outside.

  Feeling butterflies fluttering around in his stomach, Farha rose from his seat and moved to the door. He walked down the stairs quickly, Faris behind him, and set foot on foreign soil for the first time in a year. It should have been a joyous occasion for him, finally out of the UK. But instead, he felt sick with nerves and fear. He was trapped, from now on whatever happened to him was up to those around him. And he hadn’t even spoken to Henry yet. He had no idea what his reception was likely to be. As he tried t
o stay calm, Faris stepped past him and walked towards the black Escalade.

  The two enforcers had seemed big from the plane. Up close, they were enormous. Farha saw each man had a pistol tucked in a holster, poorly hidden under their jackets. The guns seemed as small as toys hanging under their ridiculously broad shoulders. He felt bile in his throat. A year ago, he had commanded guys like this without a second thought. Now, he felt completely helpless as he stood before them.

  ‘So what’s the deal?’ Faris asked the two men. ‘Where is he?’

  One of them spoke. ‘He’s at a café in the city. He’s waiting for you,’ the guy said, grinning wolfishly as he looked at Dominick. ‘He said the Albanians aren’t going to be here for another hour or so.’

  Faris nodded. Without another word, the two giants turned and moved back to the car. One of them climbed into the driver’s seat, the other in the passenger seat behind. Faris turned to Dominick, who was standing still beside him.

  ‘What the hell are you waiting for? Get in. I’m cold.’

  He obeyed, walking over and opening the door, he climbed into the back. Faris got into the front seat and the doors shut. The big guy behind the wheel fired the engine and the car moved off towards the golden lights of Paris. Inside the car, Farha glanced at his watch. 9:21 pm, London time. Paris was an hour ahead, so that made it 10:21 pm.

  An hour and forty minutes till the New Year.

  With every fibre of his being, he prayed that he’d be alive to see it.

  Four hundred yards across the airfield in the shadows, two men watched the car depart. They were bedded down deep in cover under some mesh netting, camouflage paint smeared across their faces as they lay prostrate, grim-faced and silent. They’d chosen a good spot, with thick bushes and hedge-growth all around them, right on the edge of the airfield. To any onlooker, they were invisible. No one could ever know they were there. One of them had his eye to the lens of a Nikon camera. He clicked the shutter, snapping photographs of the departing car and the licence plates. Beside him, the other man pulled a phone from his pocket.