“It h-hurts,” she winced pitifully.
“I know,” soothed Sophie. “An ambulance is on its way. Just be brave... and fight.” Unable to halt the tears, she cried freely and miserably. “Please Mer... fight for me. Don’t give up... don’t give up. Please! Please!” she sobbed. “Please don’t... please don’t you die.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Emily
Around the same time Brayden was driving Sophie away from The Queen’s Gallery in Edinburgh, Emily was travelling back to RAF Chivenor where the Westland Puma awaited on its designated landing pad, refuelled and ready for take-off.
After handing her the bagful of antidote darts, Thomas Mundahl had offered the auburn-haired woman a lift, which she accepted gratefully. Now, Thomas steered his pepper-white Mini One off the A361 at the roundabout, taking the first left. Ten seconds later as they approached another roundabout, Emily could just make out the green signage welcoming visitors to ‘Royal Marines Barracks Chivenor’ on a road branching away from the junction furthest on the right.
“Over there,” pointed Emily.
“I see it,” replied Thomas automatically. He indicated right and followed the circuit round; taking the unnamed final exit road that was only identifiable by its military welcome sign. A hundred metres down further progress was obstructed by security barriers remotely operated from within a small building set to the right of the road. Tall fencing bordered the perimeter for as far as could be seen − which wasn’t far owing to the lack of daylight.
Thomas brought the Mini to a halt.
A soldier manning the gate came out from the small building and approached their car. Thomas, closest to the approaching guard, wound down the window fully, allowing crisp air to enter. Involuntarily, Emily shivered.
“State your business, sir.” The guard was wearing the standard khaki uniform and a green beret upon his head. In his hand he held a weatherproof tactical torch, five-and-a-half-inches in length, its bright white beam pointed towards Thomas’s face.
Thomas raised a hand to shield his eyes and squinted through the brilliance. “I’m here transporting Emily Porter...” he said. “You should be expecting her return.”
“Identification, please.”
Emily produced her MI6 warrant card. Thomas reached into a trouser pocket to retrieve his wallet and carefully picked out a Norwegian driving licence. Thomas handed both to the marine.
The soldier stepped back for a moment, scrutinising the IDs under torchlight before consulting a ten-inch tablet computer which he had also been holding. Momentarily, the torch disappeared, freeing up a hand to tap and select commands on his iPad.
Emily glanced at her watch: 5:41 p.m.
After what seemed like a considerable time, the marine returned at Thomas’s window. “Here,” he said, handing the two IDs to the man. “Miss Porter is cleared to enter... but not you Mr Mundahl.”
Thomas accepted his driving licence and Emily’s warrant card and thanked the guard. He turned to Emily. “I guess this is where we say goodbye,” he said.
At 6:00 p.m. Emily was back in her seat within the Westland Puma and Barnaby had announced through her headset that they were cleared for take-off. On her return she had instructed the pilot to set a course for London and had called the Chief of SIS to inform him of her actions, and about Thomas Mundahl and the serum which he had produced based on the formula George Jennings had posthumously given them. After, the Chief provided her with an update from his end; she learned that the thefts, burglaries and robberies had carried on until around 3:00 p.m.
There had been some deaths on both sides; it was inevitable.
One police officer had been killed when he had launched himself onto the bonnet of a fleeing car − like how you often see in the movies; unlike the movies, however, his hands had nothing to purchase and instead gripped flimsy windscreen wipers hopelessly. The result was foregone; the wipers snapped free leaving him clutching them uselessly as he shimmied speedily off the car, the driver turning sharply around a corner with shaking him free his intent. The officer tragically fell into the path of an approaching dustbin lorry.
Emily was aware of three GYGES soldiers dying during a failed attempt at stealing gold from the Bank of England; the Chief had told her that earlier; there had also been one other. There were no gory details, just affirmation that another of their opposing number had died, somewhere near Hatton Garden.
A moment of quiet reflection happened between the two before Emily spoke again: “What about Sophie and the team in Edinburgh?” she asked anxiously.
“No news,” he replied.
Emily wrapped up the call, saying that she would meet with him when she arrived back at Vauxhall Cross later that day. Immediately after, she speed-dialled Brayden. It was now 6:15 p.m.
“Brayden... it’s Emily.”
“Miss Porter... It’s a terrible line. Where are you?” The connection was bad, made worse for the FBI agent to hear from the noise of the helicopter’s engine and rotors.
“I’m on my way back from Devon. How’s Sophie? Did she get the diamond okay?”
“Yes... in a manner.”
“Is she all right? Where is she?”
“Simmer down, boss. She’s fine. She’s currently meeting with Dominic... they should be about to make the exchange.”
“They should? Don’t you know?”
“Unfortunately we lost communication with her at St. Andrews Square. Dominic made her remove the mic and earpiece. We weren’t able to follow her either... not without giving ourselves away.”
Emily cursed.
“Chill, don’t panic. We’ve got this. Dominic drove for ten minutes around the city before reaching his destination.”
“How do you know?” Emily asked, curious.
“Because we knew exactly where he was going.”
“You did? How?”
“You bailed on us before I was able to bring you up to speed. Traffic cops spotted a grey van matching that used by the kidnappers heading towards Edinburgh. Mac ordered a spy drone to follow it. Long story short, with our eyes in the sky, we followed it to a location north of the city, a stone-toss from the Water of Leith.”
“Okay... are Dominic and Sophie there yet?”
“No − ah, correction! Yes... they’ve just arrived.” Brayden sounded excited.
“Okay... get the field team over there on standby.”
“Already on it. Liam is also situated close by.”
“Good. Don’t engage unless you have to. Have the drone follow Dominic... we need to find those super soldiers before they are fully developed. One will likely lead to the other.”
“Sure. What about you? Are you on your way back?”
“No... not yet. I’ve got a meeting with the Chief and some things to do first. I’ll explain later. Let me know when the exchange is done and you have Sophie and Meredith back safe.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Brayden
The MI6 agent hung up on him at the other end leaving Brayden to nurse his mobile handset, quietly contemplative. Mullins was seated next to him on the left, and both of them were back in the surveillance room loaned them by Police Scotland.
“Things all right?” asked Mullins.
Brayden slipped the mobile away. “Sure. Why wouldn’t they be?”
In front of them on the LCD screen, a night-vision aerial video feed played out; broadcast live from the MQ-9 Reaper, hovering quietly thousands of feet high above the house to the north of Edinburgh. Too dark to transmit regular video images, the drone was switched to night time mode; the image was now black and white with an emerald-green hue. With a button press and the slide of the mouse, the image could grow or shrink on command.
“Sophie’s gone in. Hopefully the trade will take place without a hi
tch,” Mullins was speaking for the sake of it.
Brayden grunted acknowledgement but said nothing. Taking over controls of the camera, he zoomed in on the front of the property. Light could be seen shining through the curtains of what he guessed was the living area, but nothing much else could be extracted. Reaching out for a communications radio placed to the left of him on the desk, he pressed a button and spoke into it.
“Liam... Sophie’s gone in.”
“Yea, I know,” he replied.
“Be on standby. Field agents are close by.”
“Roger that.” The communication device fell silent.
“I wish we still had a microphone on her... I’d love to hear what’s going on in there. I feel so helpless.” Back at St. Andrews Square, Dominic had ordered Sophie to remove her earpiece and the wireless microphone pinned to her coat. Helplessly, Brayden had listened as the small device clattered away with a whine and a whistle and transmitted little else.
“You of all people know that she’ll be all right,” asserted Mullins.
Brayden sighed, recalling in a flashback the two or three encounters he’d had with Sophie on the opposing side. “Yea, don’t I know it?”
The first sign of activity came a little over ten minutes later. The driver of the grey Ford Tourneo slunk out of the house and crossed over to the Mercedes parked in front of the van that he’d been driving earlier that day. Climbing in behind the wheel, he manoeuvred the vehicle in a number of point turns so that it no longer faced the dead end but was headed in the direction back out of the cul-de-sac. Now straight, the driver waited patiently with the engine running.
“I think they’re about to make a move,” guessed Mullins.
Brayden snatched up the communication receiver and spoke into it again. “Liam... they’re making ready to leave. Get ready to go in...”
Liam made no response. Brayden guessed that he was too close to the Mercedes driver to risk speaking.
“Do we even know where he is?” asked Brayden conversationally.
“In the trees, around here...” Mullins was touching a finger lightly against the flat VDU screen, “... I believe.” On close scrutiny and a small amount of zoom-tinkering, the barest amount of movement could be made out behind an evergreen, just ahead of some prickly-looking bushes.
“I guess he can see for himself,” resolved Brayden.
Two minutes later and the door to the house opened and the shadowy figure of Dominic Schilling hurried out, dashing the short distance from doorstep to the car in three quick steps. Before Dominic had closed the passenger door, the Mercedes started forward at speed.
Without summons, Liam sprung up from his hiding place within the trees, sprinted across the narrow cobbled road and burst into the house via the door.
“ALL TEAMS.... GO IN!!!” ordered Brayden into the communications receiver as he stood up. He turned to Mullins seated next to him. “Follow that Mercedes... don’t lose them.” Seemingly of its own accord, the video image was moving away from the house within which Liam had just disappeared and was making a slow course after the fleeing vehicle (currently not in view).
Christina Mullins made the video feed pan out to reveal a greater area of landscape, and making Dominic’s getaway car appear once again. Unknowingly, Mac in London was ordering the drone’s pilot to follow the Mercedes; and, so not to lose the vehicle, a small red dot was superficially added to the car’s roof, making it easier to track.
The communications receiver crackled just before Liam’s voice poured out. “Ah, Christ... he’s knifed her, Brayden. Stuck it deep in her back. She’s in a bad way...”
“What? Who? Sophie?”
“Meredith,” Liam informed. “It’s bad... real bad.”
For a moment Brayden looked lost. He raked a hand through his hair. “Liam... she can’t die. Do whatever you must, but keep her alive.” He ended the conversation.
“Where are you going?” Mullins asked Brayden as he dragged his coat free from the back of an unused chair. He was still holding the communications radio and wore a determined look upon his face.
“I need to speak to Meredith... now... before paramedics get to her...” Or before she dies, he thought to himself. “She knows too much, why else would Dominic want to bury a knife in her back?”
DI Hamish Bremner was in the corridor of the police station drinking a mug of coffee when Brayden hurried past.
Almost an afterthought, the DI sought to gain Brayden’s attention. He quickly gulped back a mouthful of coffee. “Agent Scott... wait up!”
Brayden threw a look back over his shoulder. “I’m in a hurry. What do you want?” He was still holding the communications receiver and subtly turned down the volume level.
Bremner followed the CIA agent through a set of double-doors. “The theft at The Queen’s Gallery this afternoon... what do you know about it?”
Brayden shrugged. “Only what I heard on the radio. Something about a diamond...”
The policeman didn’t hide the fact he wasn’t buying the man’s response. “Amazing coincidence... don’t you think? You being here when all this kicks off.”
“Coincidence? Irrelevance, more like...”
“I have witnesses claim to have seen you and members of your team driving past the gallery just after the theft occurred.”
Brayden stopped walking, turned and stepped up to the Detective Inspector. At six-foot-two-inches, Brayden towered over the policeman. “Listen... I don’t care much for where this is going. I have a material witness in an ongoing investigation badly injured − possibly dying − who I NEED to see as a matter of urgency. You have a job to do, I get that... but you’re a dog digging for a bone in the wrong garden...”
DI Bremner put up his hands in mock-surrender, half-smiling. “Okay, Chief. Tell me what happened... maybe I can help.”
Brayden started walking again. “I doubt it... but you can drive; you know the city better than I do.” He gave the suited man the address.
In silence, the CIA agent and the Detective Inspector walked out of the police station together on Gayfield Street, the policeman leading Brayden to his dark grey Audi S3 Sedan parked on the other side of the road.
Reaching into the car, DI Bremner pulled out a magnetic emergency strobe beacon and slapped it onto the roof. “We can be there in five minutes... three, if the traffic doesn’t get in our way.”
With siren wailing and the blue bubble flashing on the roof, the police detective was true to his word and steered the unmarked car around a circuit of streets and roads, coming to an end behind two other unmarked police vehicles and the grey Tourneo which Brayden recognised from stills pulled from surveillance footage. An ambulance in full emergency mode was screaming urgently close behind, but for now not in sight.
DI Bremner unclipped his seatbelt, making moves to get out.
“Wait here,” said Brayden, climbing out, closing the door gently behind him. DI Bremner watched the CIA agent run across the road and disappear into a house through a busted-in doorway. Field agents were on the scene, two guarding the entrance nursing assault rifles, others in close proximity around the cul-de-sac and within the house.
“Where are you?!” Brayden shouted out as he crossed the threshold.
“Brayden, in here,” replied Liam from within the first room off the hallway.
Brayden followed Liam’s voice and stepped through to the dingily-lit room, quickly appraising the scene. Plastic-covered sofa and chairs; old television (I haven’t seen one of them since I was a kid, he thought); bookcase with ‘turn of the nineteenth century’ books filling it; a disgusting, dirty-looking corner lamp that emitted the barest of light through an age-stained shade, and exposed floorboards with just an old rug for covering that seemed to benefit from having a young girl’s blood spattered and soaking into it.
Her eyes were closed and she barely moved.
She looked dead.
Adding credence to the conviction, Sophie was sitting on the sofa sobbing hysterically.
“Is she?”
Before Liam could answer, Meredith cried out in pain. Blood that had trickled in the thinnest of tendrils from a corner of her mouth now bubbled with spittle on her lips.
“Meredith? Meredith?”
The ten-year-old opened her eyes. They locked onto Brayden’s, looking confused.
“I’m a friend of your sisters. Help is on its way,” he reassured her. “You’re going to be all right.”
Meredith winced and shifted slightly. Her cheeks were damp and glistened from the involuntary tears that leaked from her eyes whenever she closed them.
“Don’t move, Meredith,” said Liam, feeling the girl tense beneath his weight. He turned to Brayden and shook his head, urging him not to carry on; his eyes were pleading.
Brayden took no notice. “Meredith... I need you to answer some questions... just a couple... what do you say? Would that be okay?” He spoke slowly and soothingly.
Meredith gently nodded her head, closing her eyes. Fat teardrops surfaced and fell to the jacket propped beneath her head.
“Your brothers... are they okay?”
“Yes...” replied Meredith, hoarsely.
“Do you know where they are being kept? Where did they take you? What can you tell us?”
Meredith shook her head. The movement hurt and she grimaced a little, a small moan escaping her. “I never saw the place before,” she half-whispered, half-croaked. “It was across the sea... I... I... think,” she went quiet for a moment. “I escaped... I left my brothers... to get help...” her voice seemed to gain strength. “... there was a beach on the other side of a hill... not far... before that... little houses in a row... most were ruins... but some looked used; lived in.” With every few words a small amount of blood dribbled free from her lips, indicating an internal injury.
The Whisper of Persia (The Girl in the Mirror Book 3) Page 36