by Dc Alden
‘Fine. Get Peter over here, too.’ Peter Noonan was the Deputy PM, a competent politician with a cool head in any crisis.
‘Peter’s giving a speech, at the Press club in Mayfair,’ replied Fuller. ‘Do you want me to pull him out?’
Harry thought about it for a moment then shook his head. ‘If he was anywhere else I’d say yes. What time is he due to finish?’
‘Five-thirty.’
‘Get a message to him, discreetly please, David. I want him over here as soon as he’s done.’
Fuller turned on his heel, pulling out his cell phone. Harry followed on behind, pausing to retrieve his own phone and speed-dialling his wife’s number. After a few rings her voice clicked on the line.
‘Hi, darling. How are things at Greenwich?’
‘Fine. Everything’s going very smoothly.’
In the background Harry could hear the hubbub of conversation and the scrape of china crockery. He smiled. ‘You’re better at this than I am.’ Making an effort to keep his tone casual, he continued. ‘Look Anna, something’s come up.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing to be concerned about, just a security matter. What time are you finishing?’
‘Twenty minutes. Thirty tops.’
Harry checked his watch. ‘I’ve got a brief in ten minutes. Can you call me in an hour? Let me know where you are?’
There was a pause on the line, then Harry heard the first traces of concern leaking into her voice. ‘Should I be worried, Harry?’
‘Jesus, no. Look, it’s probably nothing. Twenty minutes, did you say?’
‘Maybe thirty.’
‘Call me, okay?’
‘Sure. See you soon.’
‘Anna? Can you put Matt on the line, please? I’d like a quick word.’
There was a pause as the phone was passed to Matt Goodge, a tough Geordie and a Detective-Sergeant in Anna Beecham’s security team.
‘Sir?’
‘Hi, Matt. Look, a possible security situation has arisen.’
Goodge’s voice was all business. ‘Any specifics, sir?’
‘None yet. I’m probably overreacting, but just get Anna back here as soon as possible. Take all the usual precautions, but don’t alarm anyone. And I don’t want you whisking her out of there before she’s finished. Just make sure that you waste no time getting her home.’
‘Of course.’
Harry flipped his phone closed, ending the call. He wasn’t sure if telling Goodge was a wise idea. He had no information about this so-called security situation and sometimes a little knowledge can be dangerous. All of Anna’s bodyguards carried weapons. What if someone popped a balloon or slammed a door too hard? Those guys operated on a hair-trigger at times. He shook his head, chastising himself. He was being stupid. They were professionals, for God’s sake. He glanced at his notes, an untidy scrawl of talking points and information to be memorised. He’d try and delegate this security matter and wrap the meeting up as quickly as possible. As far as Harry was concerned, kick-starting Britain’s economy was the real issue.
Anything else could wait.
Hammersmith, West London: 5.15 pm
Alex Taylor left his motorcycle in the garage on Ravenscourt Road and decided to walk the mile or so back to his apartment in Chiswick. It was a beautiful afternoon and he was looking forward to a couple of days off. Not that being a firearms officer in the Metropolitan Police was tremendously taxing – most of his operational time was spent driving around in cars or on a firing range somewhere. But the job could be stressful at times and it was nice to get a break every now and then, especially when it was quiet. And it had been quiet for weeks. True, London’s gangland was still blowing lumps out of each other but, apart from that, it was relatively peaceful in London and Alex hoped it stayed that way.
He’d left the station in Southwark at five, weaving his BMW Tourer across London to the garage in Hammersmith for its annual service. After chatting with the mechanic for a few minutes, Alex hefted his small rucksack over his shoulder and set off towards the river.
When he got home he would grab his gym gear and go to the club for a workout, he decided. After that, he’d wander down to the pub, where he’d enjoy the rest of the evening sipping beers by the river. And who knows, maybe Kirsty would join him.
Kirsty Moore lived on the top floor of his apartment block and Alex had been well and truly smitten since the first day he’d set eyes on her. That was a few months ago now and he’d been trying to find the right opportunity to ask her out on a date, but fate had often played a hand and screwed the timing. They’d pass each other in the hallway, Kirsty pounding down the stairs, hair wet and late for work, or Alex would be heading off to Southwark for an evening shift, just as Kirsty arrived home from her job in the city.
What little contact they enjoyed was casual; they’d smile and enquire after each other’s health before going their separate ways, but Alex felt that there was a connection there and he was almost certain Kirsty felt it, too. It wasn’t anything obvious, just a glint in her deep brown eyes, a subtle look over her shoulder as they passed; not much to go on, but Alex saw them as positive signals. So, the time had come to bite the bullet and make his intentions known. If Kirsty was home this evening, he’d ask her to join him down the pub on a date. If she wasn’t home he’d scribble a note and pop it through her letterbox. Either way, he’d make plain his interest and take it from there. Alex smiled to himself. The thought of asking her made him a little nervous.
He crossed over into King Street and headed south, cutting through the subway under the A4 arterial road that carried traffic in and out of West London. At this time of day, the road was very busy in both directions and the sound and smell of the crawling vehicles soured his mood slightly. He watched the traffic as he strolled towards the river, feeling sympathy for the sweating drivers trapped in their cars and vans, the impatient horns, the revving engines, the thumping music, all overlapping into a cacophony of headache-inducing noise. Thank God he rode a bike. Still, even on a road like the A4 a bike could sometimes be a chore, too.
He turned down a side street and reached the riverbank a few minutes later, taking the towpath alongside the slow-moving waters, the sudden peace and tranquillity a world away from the river of metal behind him. Technically, the tow path was a longer route home, but he wasn’t in much of a hurry and he felt like walking, anyway. He was in good spirits as he checked his watch: five twenty-five.
Deep inside his rucksack his work phone remained unanswered, the four missed calls drowned out by the slow-moving traffic beyond the rooftops.
Clapham, South London: 5.31 pm
In a side street off Clapham High Road, Khan was pacing up and down the pavement when Max beckoned him over to the van. He pulled the side door open and jumped in.
‘What is it?’
‘Got something on the Met band.’
Khan activated the communications panel in the rear of the van. He tapped the Police icon on the screen and a series of incidents began scrolling downwards. Only two events in the area were flagged as serious; one was a road accident fatality involving a cyclist on Brixton Hill, but the other had him reaching for the radio.
‘Direct patch to OCC, please.’
The OCC was the Met’s Operations Command Centre, a high-tech communications hub located several floors beneath Scotland Yard. His headset reverberated with digital clicks and warbles. Seconds later, a female voice announced ‘OCC.’
‘Supervisor, please,’ said Khan. After a moment another voice came on the line.
‘Superintendent Greenwood, Duty Operations Controller. How can we help?’
‘Designate my call sign Kilo-Whiskey Seven,’ replied Khan. The OCC needed to identify him somehow and they’d know he was MI5.
‘Roger, Kilo-Whiskey Seven. Go ahead,’ acknowledged Greenwood.
‘Superintendent, you have a shooting incident logged adjacent to Stockwell tube station. Can you upload the footage?’
‘Sure. It’s probably a Trident job, though. Victim is a black male in his twenties, single shot to the head. Stand by while I get it routed through.’
Khan bit his lip as the seconds ticked by and the download bar crept across his screen. Then the CCTV footage was streaming inside the van.
‘It’s him! It’s Target One,’ Khan declared, stabbing a finger at the monitor. He keyed his mike again. ‘Superintendent, the man on the left of the picture is one of our surveillance targets. This isn’t a local job, it’s a national security issue. We need to pick him up ASAP.’
‘They decamped in a vehicle,’ Greenwood replied. ‘No description or index number yet, but we’re trawling the local CCTV and ANPR systems. It’s a matter of time before we get a hit.’
Khan kicked the side door in frustration. ‘Okay, thanks. If you get any more info, patch it straight through, please. We’ve got to find this guy as quickly as possible.’
Now what? fretted Khan. One thing was clear: an operation was in progress and it didn’t just involve Target One. There were others out there, all of whom had managed to shake their surveillance.
‘Get in touch with Control,’ he ordered Max. ‘See if they’ve got an update. Something big is about to kick off and we’re sitting here with our thumbs up our arses.’
Chiswick, West London: 5.37 pm
Kirsty Moore wasn’t sure whether it was the car tyres crunching up the gravel driveway or her insistent bladder that woke her from her nap. She pulled her knees up and shifted position on the sun lounger, wrapped in the warmth of the early evening sunshine that bathed her balcony, but her bladder was refusing to co-operate. She still felt tired, even after several lazy hours on the sofa, but after yesterday’s drinking session she wasn’t at all surprised.
Her weekday morning had started as it always did, with the chirping of the alarm clock at six-fifteen. After ten minutes and two clumsy attempts to connect with the snooze button, Kirsty had dragged herself out of bed and headed for the shower, making a conscious effort to avoid the mirror on her way past. Not that Kirsty was unattractive. With her shoulder-length black hair, olive skin, huge brown eyes and a figure most girls would kill for, Kirsty drew admiring glances wherever she went, and was considered a top catch at Fisher Brown Finance in Holborn where she worked as a Panther company was a relaxed and occasionally fun place to work and the night before was no exception.
Her friend, Annie, was celebrating her twenty-eighth birthday and, after work, they went to a nearby bar with most of the office turning out in support. From there, things got out of control; a mad two hours in a karaoke bar near Oxford Circus, Chinese meal in Soho, cocktails at Zoo, dancing (shoes in hand) until three. When Kirsty eventually arrived home, at around four in the morning, it was almost light and she was feeling decidedly worse for wear. Not good, considering she had to be up in two and a quarter hours. Still, she’d done it before. She was only thirty, young enough to get away with a good night out and turn up for work the next morning. Or so she thought.
Showered and dressed, but feeling very fragile, Kirsty had made her way downstairs to the street. Her apartment block was situated in Chiswick, West London, which wasn’t the most convenient of locations for getting into the city, but the fact that she had an apartment overlooking the river more than made up for the hassle of commuting. And besides, the rent was dirt cheap. Her older brother, Bruce, who lived in Slovenia, owned the place and let his baby sister stay there indefinitely. A two-bedroom apartment overlooking the Thames, no room-mates required, thank you very much.
Exiting the building, she made her way towards Chiswick station, her bleary eyes hidden behind sunglasses. A bus roared past as she waited to cross the main road, belching a thick cloud of diesel fumes in Kirsty’s direction. Her head spun as she breathed in a lungful and she groped at a traffic-light post to steady herself. She really wasn’t feeling too good…
It was at that moment that last night’s alcoholic indulgences decided to manifest themselves. Clutching her mouth tightly, she turned and stumbled across the pavement to an overflowing waste bin outside a newsagent. Other pedestrians turned their noses up in disgust and the occupants of a passing van jeered and hooted with laughter. Kirsty threw up until her stomach was empty, and then her body dry-retched for another minute just to be sure. No way was she going to the office today.
She had walked home on wobbly legs and spent the rest of the day watching daytime TV, drifting in and out of sleep. At around four in the afternoon, she made herself scrambled eggs on toast, after which she began to feel a little more human. She grabbed a book, a trashy chick-lit novel that she’d been sucked into, and settled down in her favourite lounger on the balcony. After a few pages her eyelids began to feel very heavy and the words on the page began to blur. Kirsty was soon asleep.
But now, the combination of her insistent bladder and the sound of the vehicle in the driveway below had woken her. She was puzzled and a little irritated. She wondered who it could be and considered having a quick peek over the balcony, but the call of nature was becoming more persistent and wouldn’t be ignored. Well, she needed a shower anyway. She slapped her novel down onto the balcony deck and padded across the lounge to the bathroom. As she passed the kitchen, Kirsty glanced at the clock on the wall.
It was almost twenty to six.
Crisis Management Centre: 5.41 pm
‘So, what do we do now?’ Harry asked, leaning back in his chair.
He’d been in the CMC for over forty minutes and the information contained in the confidential hand-out was really rather thin. No, that was unfair, Harry corrected himself. The security services were doing their best with what they had, but his impatience was beginning to bubble to the surface. Islamic terrorists, for God’s sake? Like everyone else, Harry had thought that that deadly phenomenon was far behind them all.
His eyes drifted along the walls, past the huge plasma screens that linked to various defence and intelligence agencies, until he reached the political map of the world at the end of the room. Harry studied it as the debate continued around the table, his eye drawn to the huge swathe of green that represented the Islamic state of Arabia. It dominated the map, curling around the Mediterranean and dwarfing the myriad of politically fractured countries around it.
Like most politicians the world over, Harry was impressed with the enormous achievements that Arabia had made over the last ten years. The rebirth of a Caliphate had certainly assuaged the anger of Muslims worldwide, and that was something they all had to be thankful for. However, Arabia’s stranglehold on the world’s oil markets was bankrupting Europe. Baghdad had complained about contaminated wells and problems with their offshore pumping facilities, but privately no western leader believed it. Europe’s nuts were in a vice and the Arabs were twisting the handle. But why?
It was a topic discussed at every European summit over the last year and the same conclusion was always reached: find an alternative energy source and find it quickly. Harry would have laughed if the situation wasn’t so serious. Wind farms and electric cars, sacred touchstones of the Green movement and championed by their most fervent disciples, just weren’t going to cut it, not if Europe’s economies were to thrive once more.
But the Americans, well, there was a mystery. California, arguably America’s most power-hungry state, once bankrupt, was now quietly enjoying sound economic growth and stable power supplies. How? And could Harry persuade the US to share some of its newfound prosperity? He thought he could, but sitting down here in this drab bunker wasn’t going to make that happen, despite the urgency of the meeting. Time, in that case, to wrap things up. He cleared his throat loudly and the arguments died away, the CIG attendees lapsing into silence.
‘Time is pressing, ladies and gentlemen. Recommendations, please.’
‘Prime Minister, losing a subject isn’t unusual, but in the last few hours we’ve witnessed multiple disappearances,’ the head of SIS reminded the room. ‘They all appear to be pre-planned. This isn�
�t mere coincidence. An operation is under way.’
‘So, what do we do?’ asked Harry.
The senior Defence Intelligence Staff officer, Brigadier Giles Forsythe, leaned forward and clasped his hands together on the table. All eyes turned to the man in the green uniform.
‘Prime Minister, I agree with my colleagues. Our alert status should be raised across the board in both our civil and military forces. As SIS has pointed out, a planned operation looks increasingly likely against-’
‘Nonsense!’ Around the room, heads swivelled sharply towards the suntanned, balding pate of the Foreign Secretary, Geoffrey Cooper. ‘Prime Minister, I really think that we may be overreacting here. ‘The Brigadier shot him an icy look. Cooper ignored the glare and concentrated on Harry. ‘Yes,’ he continued, ‘I agree with our colleague from SIS that the circumstances are rather unusual. However, the subjects in question are all Muslims and I think that this raises a very important issue.’
‘Explain,’ ordered Harry, glancing at the clock on the wall. He could see that Cooper was in his element, the focus of attention in the room. A small, dapper man in his early fifties, Cooper exuded an air of annoying self-importance and not a small degree of arrogance, qualities that seemed to have manifested themselves only after his appointment as Foreign Secretary. As a result, Harry had quietly pencilled Cooper in for a demotion in the next Cabinet reshuffle. He wasn’t a vindictive person, but Cooper had a habit of getting under everybody’s skin, which was bad for business and bad for the country. Harry was curious to see if a stint in Transport would deflate that ego.
‘As you know,’ began Hooper, ‘I have spent some time working with the present Arabian administration with whom I have been able to forge some very productive diplomatic ties, ties that have directly benefited this country. Now, it’s a fact that since the state of Arabia came into being, Islamic terrorism has melted away across the globe, something that-’