Jane focused.
It took her no more than five minutes to explain the GPS issue. For brevity, she left out The Church of the White Cross’s involvement, but gave Colin the Venezuelan details.
She finished with, ‘But, so far, the cruise missiles are heading to the Syrian target as planned. None are diverting to a secondary target.’
Colin didn’t speak for a moment. He chewed the end of his thumb.
‘That’s what they’re telling you.’
‘What, the Americans?’
‘No - the cruise missiles. If I’ve understood you correctly, someone in Venezuela is sending rogue positional detail to at least one of the missiles. That’s correct?’
‘Yes.’
And?
Colin took the whiteboard marker from Jane. He drew as he spoke.
‘The missile is following a preplanned route. From GPS coordinate to GPS coordinate. But, if you tell it it’s here …’, he put a dot to the left of the trajectory Jane had drawn, ‘it will compensate. Eventually thinking that it’s back on track.’ He drew a different route heading south, away from Jane’s route. ‘It thinks it’s following its original course. But it isn’t. Then Venezuela diverts it again …’, another dot to the left, ‘it compensates again.’ He extended the trajectory further south. ‘It’s now off track by twice as much distance to the right. But, it thinks it’s on track. Following its predetermined route.’
Jane was on it now. She got it. It was what had been bothering her all along. She just couldn’t articulate it.
‘Just because the missile is reporting that it’s on track, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is. Because it’s working on rogue data! You fool it, it thinks it is moving back to its predetermined route and reports that everything’s OK. But it isn’t. It’s off beam. It’s genius. Fool proof!’ She said.
‘Unless you’re tracking the missile from without, say an airborne early-warning system, you’d never know. You would believe what it was telling you. And it’s telling you that everything’s OK with its world.’
‘Airborne radar - like an AWACS?’ Jane’s tiredness had gone. She still needed a wee, though. ‘Both the RAF and USAF have the whole region covered, 24/7. Their systems would have picked up a stray cruise missile. But, without an alert the operators won’t necessarily be interrogating the trace - they’ll be looking at something else, maybe Russian ships in the eastern Med.’ She paused for a split second. ‘Unless they’re having a particularly good day.’ She moved back to her desk. ‘I’ll get back to the Americans. You get hold of the RAF. Let’s see if these missiles are actually headed where they say they’re headed.’
5°16'39.8"N 67°25'48.7"W, Amazonas Jungle, Venezuela
Sam thought she might be stepping into the light, but it was as dim in the corridor as it had been in the cell. It looked like there was an exit directly ahead of her. About 15 metres away. There were four doors on either side of the corridor. The one at the end was slightly ajar. That’s the outside?
She took a breath and squeezed the pistol grip; an unnecessary check to make sure the weapon was still in her hand. Then she stepped off. She had decided to try all the doors on the left - but ignore the ones on the right. She could only manage one side. There was some logic to it. If the four on the left were locked, the likelihood was that the ones on the right were locked too. She couldn’t do all eight. She couldn’t.
Door one. Locked.
Breathe.
She staggered down the corridor a few metres further.
Door two. Locked.
More staggering.
Door three. Locked.
There’s a message here.
Door four. Locked.
Fuck! The pain overcame her. She bent double; straight arms to her knees keeping her back straight, releasing some pressure on her stomach. She was blubbering. Her head was rocking up and down, her tears splashing on the floor. She couldn’t go on.
I can’t go on.
She had to go on. The CIA had issued an ‘immediate’ level 5 threat - you couldn’t badge it any worse. And that threat was being controlled from here.
And Austin was dying. That was almost more important. She had to try and get help.
I have to go on.
Sam stood slowly, using the wall for support. Step. Step. She made it to the door at the end of the corridor. Breathe. She pushed the door further ajar, but only far enough. She couldn’t waste any energy.
She slipped through.
Into the dark of the jungle. The moonlight she had used to apply Austin’s tourniquet was now gone. All that was left was blackness.
As she let her eyes adjust as best they could to the dark, she listened.
She heard the usual jungle sounds. Buzzing and chirping. She’d spent a month in Belize at the army jungle-training centre. She knew the noises of the jungle.
But there was another sound.
A hum? A mechanical sound. A generator?
She wasn’t sure.
She looked forward. Her pupils were letting in more light. She could start to make out large objects. Austin said two buildings. And a satellite dish.
There it is.
The second building was ahead of her. And against the inky dark of the jungle and the overcast sky she spotted the satellite dish. It was big; no, it was huge. Easily big enough to talk to a satellite and send a battleship on a collision course. She looked left and right. There was the Hilux. But there was nothing else. Two buildings and a satellite dish. And a Hilux. Not much.
The gap from where she stood to the second building was unthinkable. It was 25 metres - maybe 30. There was no handrail. No support. Just some gravel. She’d never make it. An extraordinarily sharp pain from below reminded her of her injuries. Telling her it was futile.
I have to go on.
Sam staggered. One step at a time. Short paces. No more than 15 to 20 centimetres. Left. Right. Left. Right.
She built up a rhythm. Left, right, left, right. It was working. She was halfway across. Left, right, left, right. Just like in training. The drill sergeant screaming at them.
‘You. Green! You march like a fucking girl!’
She laughed to herself. Humour from delirium. Left, right, left, right. Her feet dragged. She caught a foot on a rise in the gravel.
I’m falling!
No. No. I’m not. Although her core strength had been ripped to shreds by whatever internal injury she was carrying, somehow … somehow … she kept her footing and stayed upright.
More pain. Some tears.
Come on!
Left, right, left, right. Progress.
She put out her left hand. She toppled forward. It was only a couple of centimetres and then she had a flat hand against the wall of the second building. She had made it. Shuffling like an effing girl.
Breathe.
The door. Into the second building. Apart from a roof decorated with a satellite dish as big as a golf course, the building looked the same as the one she had just left. Single storey. No windows so far.
She reached for the door handle. And turned it. Nothing. It was locked.
Keys.
She took out Bell’s keys. There were four on the ring. She discounted the two that she knew had opened the cells. Two more. One for each main door?
Success first time. The key turned in the lock. She removed the key; put the ring back in her pocket. And opened the door - just far enough to let her in. The effort was monumental. The pain up a notch. But she was in.
The corridor was the same. The lighting was the same. But there was one major difference. There was only one door on the right, not four; and it was fitted with a chest-height glass panel. And then three windows. Window - door - window - window. Each window was gently lit from activity within. Was the right-hand side of the building the control centre?
She edged forward, the door closing behind her.
Step. Shuffle. Step. The wall providing a frame to balance against.
First window. It
was reinforced glass. A very thin metal mesh between two panes.
She peeked in.
Bingo.
The room was the length of the building. There were two desks - both were manned. Both were equipped with large computer screens; maybe 50-inchers. There were banks of computers - and trunking. All over the place. In the far corner Sam spotted a kitchen. A sink and a fridge. The place was workmanlike. Functional. But unfinished?
Ops. Need to talk about equipment.
But it wasn’t unfinished. Not for the job it was intended for. Both men were staring at screens that were alive with information.
In a few minutes, Green, we are going to commit an act so inflammatory that it will stop the world. Nothing will ever be the same again. It is a great day.
Bell had been clear. Whatever was happening here was so severe, so critical that it was going to be world-changing.
Two 50-inch screens, some computers, trunking and an eff-off satellite dish.
She couldn’t see the screens. She needed to see the screens; get into the room and put a stop to whatever madness they were enacting.
Try the door.
Sam couldn’t risk being seen. She slid down the wall, buckling her body, until her head was below window height. The pain level intensified.
Oh, God …
And then she passed out.
Sam woke. She had no idea how long she’d been out for. It could have been a few seconds. It could have been hours. In the interval nothing had changed. Crippling pain. Three windows. One door. And an act so inflammatory that it was going to stop the world.
Sam didn’t need to ask herself any supplementaries. She didn’t need reminding of where she was, or what she had been going to do. She woke up and immediately someone pressed ‘Play’. Like a mechanical bunny. She was off again.
She got herself onto all fours. Shit that hurts. And crawled.
Shuffle - shuffle - shuffle. It was made more difficult because she had the thug’s pistol in her hand. She pushed it along the concrete in front of her.
Shuffle - shuffle.
Door.
Come on girl. Stand now. And no passing out.
Her body responded. She stood, pressing herself against the door frame. She pushed her head forward and looked in.
She could see both screens clearly.
It took fewer than three seconds before she had it. The screen on the right was all numbers, codes and coordinates. She had no idea what was going on there. The screen on the left was self-explanatory. It was a map of most of the Saudi Peninsula. It extended as far north as Cyprus, and as far south as the Yemeni border. In the west it took in the Red Sea and eastern Egypt; to the east, it finished on a line that cut Saudi Arabia in two.
Superimposed on the map was a red line - it was slightly crooked. It started in the eastern Med and finished halfway down the western edge of Saudi Arabia. The line was in segments, passing through way points, each of which was marked with a number. On the top right of the screen was an inset box. It was big, probably ten-by-ten centimetres. It was a positional blow-up - of the delivery vehicle.
What exactly?
What can you control by GPS to hit a target and create an event that would stop the world?
Not Austin’s son’s Reaper - for sure. Something much more destructive.
A penny tumbled …
A missile. From the eastern Mediterranean.
US Navy?
Yes.
She knew exactly what it was.
A cruise missile.
Fired by the US Navy
That’s what it was. The US Navy had more cruise missiles in the eastern Med than the Brits had in their whole inventory.
And right now it was a third of the way down the Saudi coast, its route starting southeast of Cyprus, flying over the unpopulated Sinai Peninsula, and into the Red Sea. If you were on holiday in Sharm El Sheikh, weren’t drunk and had your eyes open about 20 minutes ago, you might have spotted a deliverer of death flying overhead.
She knew the target as well. Where the crooked red line ran out.
It was obvious. Inspired.
Bell was right. If someone didn’t stop this, in - there was a clock running down on the second screen, she squinted to see the detail - 21 minutes and 07 seconds’ time, the world was going to stop and nothing would ever be the same again. The target was spectacular and the effect of a single cruise-missile strike would stop the world.
Sam tried the door whilst keeping an eye on the two operators.
It was locked.
Breathe.
She tried all four keys - each time keeping an eye on the operators.
None of the keys worked. The men remained glued to their screens.
Shit.
Nineteen minutes.
Oh, what the hell.
She stood back from the door. Took aim with the pistol. And fired two rounds at the door lock.
Bang! Ping! Bang! Ping!
The noise filled the corridor - and it filled all of the space between her ears. The ringing remained with her. Smoke from the barrel briefly obscured her view into the room.
The operators were looking now. One was on his feet. He was heading to the portion of the wall between the first window and where she was now.
Sam tried the door.
It was still locked.
Shit.
A new sound now. A loud, mechanical, circular sound.
Metal blinds. Dropping down from inside. Across the door. She looked left and right.
And the windows.
Metal blinds. The operators were barricading themselves in. All they had to do was withstand … she had dropped her head so her eyeline was just in front of the falling blind … 18 minutes and 20 seconds of her messing about with a 9 millimetre. And then it would all be over.
Sam Green. A 9 mm pistol. And the world stopping.
Who did she think she was?
Chapter 19
Headquarters SIS, Vauxhall, London
‘We’ve got it.’ Colin had burst into the Jane’s office He was in front of her desk in a single stride.
‘What?’ Jane was putting together an update for the JIC. The Chief had just left after a briefing and was back in his office. The senior committee staff (and the Prime Minister) were on call. Their teams were working through options should a rogue cruise missile hit something it wasn’t supposed to. The good news was the DD had told her that the Tomahawks were all fitted with conventional munitions - nothing nuclear. He hadn’t been explicit, but it was likely that the missile contained bomblets, or cluster munitions. Whatever - the effect at the target end was likely to be carnage.
‘What?’ Jane’s reply was sharp. They needed something.
‘The RAF have got an E-3 Sentry, AWACS, in a holding pattern off the coast of northern Egypt. They were following the US strike. Twenty-eight missiles in the air. Twenty-seven flew to their target in Syria. One diverted south, over the Sinai Peninsula and is currently halfway down the Red Sea.
Brrr. Brrr.
It was the DD. Jane put her hand up to stop Colin mid-sentence for the second time in half an hour. With her free hand she pressed the speaker button.
‘Jane?’
‘Yes. You’re on speaker.’
‘We have a rogue missile.’
‘We know. Heading south down through the Red Sea.’
There was momentary silence.
‘We think we know the target.’
In the 15 seconds that Colin had been in the office Jane had already done the analysis. She’d got it as soon as Colin had said where the missile was, and which direction it was travelling. It was obvious - now. If you, The Church of the White Cross, wanted to send a message to Islam, a message so severe, so cruel, that your enemy had to react, there was only one target.
Mecca.
Muhammad's birthplace and the site of his first revelation of the Quran. Islam’s holiest city. Smack dead centre of every Muslim’s beating heart.
When pra
ying, all Muslims faced in its direction: the bayt Allāh.
If the missile hit its target, the infidels were waging war on The Holy Kaaba - Islam’s House of God; the building, The Cube, was at the centre of Islam’s most sacred mosque.
A US missile - fired from a US battleship. Striking Mecca. Destroying The Holy Kaaba. Then ramifications were unthinkable.
Revelation 16:16. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
That would surely follow. It may not happen at the site of an ancient Israeli city. But many Christians didn’t believe that anyway. They believed that it would happen throughout the world. Where God would smite all governments and save only those who submit to his rulership.
‘Mecca.’ Jane didn’t say in a triumphalist way. Like, ‘We Brits are just as good at this as you.’ She was flat. Downhearted.
Again the line was quiet for a second.
‘Sure. If we don’t stop this missile-strike, the world will wake up tomorrow and everything will be different.
‘Armageddon.’
‘Agreed. That’s one way of putting it.’
‘Can your Navy stop it?’
‘Nope. They’ve tried. They think someone tampered with the override software. It’s running on orders from somewhere else now.’
‘Venezuela’ It was a throwaway comment. Unnecessary. ‘Can you shoot it down?’
‘Negative. We picked it up too late. Fifteen minutes earlier and we could have got the Saudis to launch an F15 from Jeddah. But their notice to move is 20 minutes. It’s just too late.’
‘How long do we have. And where are the marines?’ Their only hope.
‘It’s not the marines. It’s “The Unit”; Delta Force. They’re 12 minutes out. We reckon time-to-target for the missile is a max 15 minutes. They have the smallest of chances. They need to find the village and then they’ll circle outwards until they spot the dish. It’s incredibly unlikely that they’ll make it. But they’ll try.’
For Good Men to Do Nothing Page 36