by Tom Barber
When they’d received the call from Cobb outside One Canada Square, the officers had rushed into action. But there was a problem.
They only had one car.
Fox had taken one of them with Shapira, Porter the other to take Archer back to the Unit’s HQ. They didn’t have time to arrange other transportation, so only four of them could go. Deakins was behind the wheel, Mac in the front seat beside him. Behind, Chalky was on the right, Rivers to his left. Mac realised that the American had spent a lot of time with the woman over the last twenty-four hours. He figured he might have some ideas as to where she could be.
He checked his watch again. 1:26pm.
‘Floor it, Deaks,’ he ordered. The officer behind the wheel nodded, and pushed his foot down, the vehicle speeding on towards the stadium, as fast as possible.
Inside the stadium, Mia was now on a lower level. She’d been waiting for the two policemen to turn their backs. All she needed was a split-second. They’d given her an opportunity, and in a heartbeat, she’d taken her chance and gone. She knew they’d call in her sudden disappearance via radio and alert other members of the security upstairs. She needed to get on the lower level before they did.
And she had. Upstairs, it sounded as if the players were now walking out onto the pitch. There was thunderous noise above her as the fans cheered their arrival. The place rumbled as if they were on a fault line and it was an earthquake. The white corridor she was currently striding down was empty. All the security were watching the crowd or the players on the pitch. Not down here.
But just at that moment, a guard appeared from around the corner ahead of her, fifteen yards away.
He frowned when he saw Mia walking towards him and moved forward, confronting her.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
She didn’t respond, bearing down on him.
And suddenly, she lunged her body forward. Her hands were up, going for his throat. She grabbed his neck either side and with a violent wrench, she broke his neck with terrifying speed, as if it was a dry twig. He flopped to the floor, dead.
She grabbed his body by the ankles, and pulled it round the corner. As she did so, she saw that she’d arrived where she needed to be.
Ahead of her was a vending machine, Coca Cola printed on the front, white letters over a red background. Dumping the guy’s body beside it, she leaned back and double-checked both sides of the corridor again. She was all alone. She pulled something from the rear waistband of her suit trousers, hidden by her jacket. It was a small electronic tool. A screwdriver. She reached up and pushing the tool into a slot in the corner of the front panel of the vending machine, she pulled the small trigger.
The tool whined, and it started spinning the first screw on the drinks machine, pulling it out.
Across the city, Porter pulled up to a halt outside the Unit’s headquarters. Archer was beside him, wincing in pain. His ankle was killing him. On their way back, Mac had called Porter’s phone, ordering him to get over to Stamford Bridge as quickly as he could. He hadn’t been specific, he’d just said there was some situation with Shapira and for Porter to get down there as soon as possible. Archer looked out of the window and saw that they pulled up outside the ARU parking lot.
‘I’ve got to get over there, Arch,’ Porter said. ‘Don’t want to piss off Mac.’
Archer nodded, pushing open his door with a grimace. ‘Thanks for the lift. I’ll see you shortly,’ he said through his teeth.
‘Alright, mate. Take care. Get someone inside to take a look at that ankle.’ Archer nodded as he climbed out, in agony from the damaged joint, and slammed the door behind him. He found he could put the slightest pressure on his foot, but not much. He hopped and hobbled into the car park like an old man, as he heard Porter speed off behind him.
Suddenly, he realised something and swore.
He’d left his MP5 on the back seat of the car.
The Unit had a strict policy on the care and protection of their weapons. Mac was going to give him a hiding when he found out. Cursing his carelessness, Archer limped into the car park and started hobbling slowly towards the entrance. The place was quiet save for a solitary figure standing to the left of the doors. Looking closer, Archer saw it was the DEA agent, Crawford, smoking a cigarette.
Archer gritted his teeth and hobbled towards him, a hundred yards away.
The police car containing the three ARU officers and Rivers screeched to a halt on Fulham Broadway. They saw the other Unit vehicle, parked there on the kerb. Climbing out, the four men ran towards the entrance gates. Even from here they could hear a voice on a microphone inside the stadium, calling for a minute’s silence to remember the lives lost at the Emirates last night. They saw Fox approaching them from inside the ground, a cluster of guards with him. Mac and his three companions were let into the ground without delay, their weapons still in hand. He strode towards Fox who had arrived by a small boxed room by the gate. The guard inside passed him over his weapons.
‘Where is she?’ Mac asked.
‘She was out here, Sarge. I turned my back to talk to you and when I looked back, she was gone.’
Mac kept his voice low. A sudden silence had fallen inside the stadium. It was uncanny. He turned to the men around him. Including the stadium security, there were nine of them.
‘Find her!’ he said, in a hushed voice.
The men nodded. The nine of them split up, and they ran into the bowels of the stadium.
Back in the car park at the ARU, Archer was struggling to make it to the doors. His ankle was agony. He couldn’t put pressure on it at all.
And he was severely pissed off. This would put him out of action for the next couple of months, and it had all happened because of his carelessness. With him out on the side-lines, some other guy could come in and momentarily take his spot. Shaking his head, he looked up and saw that by the doors, Crawford had noticed the young police officer’s struggle to get across to the entrance.
Flicking away the cigarette, the American started walking forward to help him.
On the lower level of the stadium, Mia finished with the last screw on the front of the vending machine. Placing the electric screwdriver to one side, she grabbed the panel and pulled. The front of the machine lifted away.
Inside the rectangular metal box, there were no cans of drinks.
There were two large canisters instead, each containing amber liquid that glowed like treasure.
Black lettering was printed vertically down each cylinder.
VX Nerve Gas
It was the most lethal nerve agent ever synthesised, five hundred times more toxic than cyanide. Once inhaled, the gas shut down an enzyme in the body that controlled muscle and nerve function. A person would shudder and fit so hard they either bit off their own tongue or swallow it. Their back would break from the muscle spasms. And they’d die, their skin melting, blood pouring from every orifice. She smiled.
Perfect.
Mia looked inside the transparent casing of each cylinder. The liquid was oily, golden in colour. Seemingly innocent enough. But these two canisters of liquid would kill every person in the stadium with ease once it was airborne. And scores more unlucky enough to be outside on the street would die from the fallout. The weapon had been sitting in Henry’s private aircraft hangar for almost a year, an unwanted gift from an associate who had requested a large haul of meth and who couldn’t front up the cash. Beside the canisters was tucked a silenced pistol. A Heckler and Koch USP. Mia smiled. Henry knew any weapon she had would be confiscated at the gate. He’d even thought to include a silencer. She reached forward, taking the weapon and racking the slide, loading a round in the chamber and flicking off the safety catch. With her bare hands, she was dangerous. Now, she’d be close to unstoppable.
Returning her attention to the nerve gas, she set to work arming the device. She would detonate the gas via a remote trigger. The switch for the detonation was also tucked inside. She’d make her way out the ground and push it fro
m a safe distance. She had no intention of being here when the bomb went off.
Suddenly, she realised the stadium upstairs had gone quiet. A minute’s silence, she thought.
The whole place was as silent as a church in prayer.
But not for long, she thought, with a grin.
In the sunny car park across the city, Archer was glad to see the American approaching. Even only light hopping was jarring savage pain into his body from the ankle. He’d need help before he got any further. The DEA agent was forty yards away and closing.
As he approached, something over the man’s shoulder caught Archer’s attention. Another figure had entered the lot. Archer didn’t recognise him, but he was walking fast, approaching Crawford from behind. The guy was dressed in a suit and sunglasses, but there was something about him that seemed familiar.
And then, all of a sudden, the guy’s face rang a bell, even behind the shades.
Archer realised who it was.
For a split-second, he wondered if he was delirious from the pain. But he blinked and realised what he was seeing was real.
Dominick Farha was walking straight towards Special Agent Crawford.
TWENTY-SIX
At Stamford Bridge, the minute’s silence had ended with the cheep of a whistle and a long round of applause from the crowd that built in volume until it seemed the earth shook. Down below, Mia was finishing arming the VX gas. Above, the crowd had started chanting. It was making the lower level rumble as if there was an air raid happening in the sky.
Suddenly, a guard rushed around the corner to her left. He was searching around, hastily, looking for something or someone. Me, she thought. He paused as he saw her, then the contents of the vending machine, and the dead body of the guard with the broken neck. He froze for just a split second, as his brain registered the situation.
‘Hey!’
Mia already had the silenced pistol in her right hand, and she shot him in the face. His head rocked back like he’d just downed a shot of tequila and he collapsed to the floor in a heap. She moved forward, grabbing his ankles and pulling him out of the main corridor. Blood and brains from the gunshot had been spattered all over the white corridor behind him, but it didn’t matter.
She was ready to leave.
For a split-second, a million questions ran through Archer’s mind, like access codes on a high-tech computer.
It can’t be him?
It’s him!
Why is he here?
What’s that in his hand?
Special Agent Crawford was now twenty yards away, and Dominick Farha was ten yards behind him. He was gaining fast on the DEA agent, who had no idea he was being approached.
Archer saw what the terrorist leader was holding.
It was a knife.
Chalky and Rivers were searching for Shapira together. They’d given up looking around the stadium floor and had gone down to the first sub-level. Chalky had his MP5 up tight in the aim, Rivers his pistol. They pulled open a door and moved down the corridor, silently and swiftly. Chalky ducked his head into a changing room as Rivers pressed on. He saw something against the wall, and on the floor ahead of him. He moved forward, looking closer.
It was blood.
And suddenly, someone rounded the corner, colliding with him.
Shapira.
She had a pistol in her hand. Rivers reacted instantly. He tried to wrestle the gun from her hand whilst he pulled his own weapon from its holster on his hip. She snapped her head forward, head-butting him hard, breaking his nose with the crown of her head. His eyes filled with water and he was momentarily stunned and blinded from the blow. She shot him in the stomach, and he fell to the ground, hunched over and out of the game.
However, Chalky had gained some ground on her. He’d raised his MP5 to get a shot, but Rivers had been in the way so he’d moved closer. Too close. She knocked the gun out of the way. It wasn’t strapped to his shoulder, and it clattered to the floor, out of reach. She raised her own pistol, but he threw himself at her with a cry, knocking her own gun from her hand. They wrestled on the floor. Shapira was thrashing and fighting like a hellcat, trying to bite his face and gouge his eyes.
Beside them, Rivers writhed in agony as he bled out on the floor, ten yards down the corridor. He watched helplessly as the two of them fought on the ground, blood pumping from the wound to his gut.
Archer reacted fast.
Remembering that he didn’t have his MP5, his hand flashed to his right thigh. He pulled his Glock 17, flicking off the safety catch in the same instant. ‘HEY!’ he screamed at Farha, raising the weapon.
In front of him, Crawford’s eyes widened with confusion. But Farha reacted fast. He dashed forward, behind Crawford, blocking Archer’s line of sight, and grabbed the DEA Special Agent by the collar, wrapping his arm around his neck like a vice. He pushed the knife to the helpless man’s throat, nestling the blade beside his jugular. The movement knocked off his sunglasses, and Archer saw his eyes for the first time. They were red-rimmed, dark, wide and filled with hate and fury.
‘BACK UP!’ he screamed at Archer, from behind Crawford’s head. ‘BACK UP!’
The officer didn’t move, but he didn’t have a shot, as Farha was hidden behind Crawford. Adrenaline pumped through Archer’s veins, and he stood on his injured foot to steady his aim.
He didn’t even remember it was broken.
In the lower level of the stadium, Chalky had the upper hand. Shapira was fighting like a wild-cat, biting, scratching. But he was physically stronger she was, and he’d wrestled his way on top.
But suddenly, she grabbed his arm and threw her legs up and around his neck, pulling them tight into a jiu-jitsu triangle choke. Chalky tried to fight it, but she had the hold locked in tight.
He gasped, feeling the pressure around his neck tighten like a snake.
His face turned red. He was suffocating. He knew he was seconds from passing out. And Shapira knew it too.
As he desperately tried to free himself, she snarled at him from the floor.
‘Drop the gun or he dies!’ Farha screamed.
Archer was trying to get his cross-hairs on the guy, but he was clever. He’d pulled himself around Crawford, protecting himself, leaving only two inches of his head in Archer’s sight. One of his eyes glared hatefully at the young policeman from beside the DEA agent’s neck. Behind them, Archer saw Cobb, Nikki and Frost running over from the entrance to the building. They must have seen or heard the commotion from inside. Farha sensed them coming, and twisted to look at them, keeping his head tight behind Agent Crawford’s and out of Archer’s firing line.
‘Back off! Back off or I kill him!’ he screamed.
Cobb, Nikki and the older detective stopped in their tracks, their hands up. Archer saw them all realise who he was, shocked. Under the guy’s arm, Crawford's eyes were wide in terror. Farha turned his attention back to Archer, who still had his Glock aimed. The terrorist pushed the razor-sharp blade harder, so a trickle of blood slid down Crawford’s neck.
‘Another ounce of pressure, he dies because of you,’ he screamed. ‘Drop the gun!’
Chalky was seconds from unconsciousness.
He gathered all his strength in one last attempt and scooped the woman up off the floor. Her legs were wrapped around his neck like an anaconda, and she rose in the air as he lifted her high, her face burning with hate.
And he slammed her down, as hard as he could.
It worked.
She yelled in pain as her back smashed into the floor, her legs loosened, which released the choke hold. Gasping for breath, Chalky fell back. He saw his pistol on the floor by the wall in the corridor. Clutching his throat and coughing, he dived for it. Behind him, Shapira had recovered fast. Chalky heard what sounded like a phone book slamming onto a table. He felt a thud and a searing pain in his back.
Suddenly, his legs wouldn’t work.
He collapsed, reaching forward desperately for his weapon.
It was jus
t out of reach from his fingertips.
‘Last chance!’ Farha screamed.
Archer hadn’t moved, but his damaged ankle was starting to send shooting pain through his entire body as he stood on it. It was affecting his aim. The sight on the Glock in his hands was moving from Farha to Crawford to the car park then back to Farha.
More people had rushed outside into the lot from the Unit. They gasped as they watched the stand-off. Crawford was staring at Archer, his eyes wide, silently pleading for help. Blood was trickling down his neck, staining the blue collar of his shirt from the puncture wound. Farha had the knife jammed by his artery. An extra ounce of pressure, it would be cut and Crawford would bleed to death on the spot.
But Archer didn’t look at Crawford.
He was staring into Farha’s one furious eye, through the top-sight of his pistol.
In agony from the bullet wound, Chalky tried to crawl towards his weapon. There was another thump as another phonebook hit a desk. White plaster exploded from the wall as she fired deliberately close to his head. The white chalk mixed with the blood on the floor from the bullet wound in Chalky’s back.
She had him and he knew it. He turned, rolling onto his wounded back.
She was holding a silenced pistol in one hand.
In the other was a switch.
He could see behind her the two large canisters of nerve gas.
And now she had the weapon aimed at his head.