by Tom Cain
Carver had told Tyrrell he’d call if he found anything suspicious. This certainly qualified. He pulled out his phone, pressed the number, and then waited frustratedly as the rings at the far end went unanswered. Carver could imagine the rising noise-levels at the refinery. He could hear helicopters getting closer. The VIPs were on their way. When the voicemail came on he said, ‘This is Carver. Call me. I’ve found something you should see.’
Ninety seconds had passed since Carver had driven into the farmyard.
It was clear to him now that there was something in the van that someone did not want discovered. He wasn’t going to wait around for backup before he found out what it was. He ran back to the Audi, opened the boot, and pulled up the felt lining to reveal the spare wheel. In the middle of the wheel a plastic tray held the tools needed to put it on the car, including a tyre iron. Carver picked this up and went back to the barn.
He was sprinting now, driven by an instinct that something was badly, urgently wrong.
Inside the van, the timer had run down to twenty seconds, and counting …
Carver dashed up to the van and smashed the tyre iron against one of the side windows. The effect was minimal, just a small crack in the glass. He swung his arm again, putting all his strength into it, then repeated the blow again and again, battering the toughened glass until it first cracked into a spider’s web of fracture lines, and then, at last, a hole appeared.
Carver needed to make it bigger, and the small head of the tyre iron wasn’t up to that job. He used his own elbow, jabbing at the glass until a great section of the window gave way.
Now he reached into the open window and pulled the curtain open. He looked in and his eyes widened as he saw the gas cylinders, arranged like giant test tubes in their metal rack. Carver knew exactly what he was looking at. He gripped the sides of the window frame, ignoring the fragments of broken glass that still clung to them, and was about to pull himself up and through the window when there was a sudden blast of blinding light, deafening noise and burning heat, and as Carver flung himself to the ground he realized that he’d been beaten.
Dave Smethurst had set the four-hour timer at 6.39 and 42 seconds, precisely. And so at 10.39 and 42 seconds an electrical signal was sent by the timer to the junction box inside the Toyota Hiace, and then on to the twelve launch tubes. Twelve igniters sparked into life, causing the ammonium nitrate to decompose, releasing a large quantity of oxygen. This reacted with the hydrogen and carbon in the icing sugar to produce an intense, barely controlled burst of energy, concentrated within the high-pressure tubes. This sudden flare of light and flame ignited the fuses at the bottom of each shell, and blasted the shells through the skin of paper stretched across the roof of the camper van and up into the clear blue sky.
Five seconds later the thirteenth fuse set off the igniter in the jerrycan of fuel that Smethurst had left inside the van. It, too, burst into flame, engulfing the interior of the vehicle and destroying any trace of fingerprints or DNA, leaving just a scorched and blackened metal shell.
Carver picked himself up from the floor of the derelict barn, momentarily deafened by the force of the explosion. He screwed up his eyes, gave his head a shake to clear it … and then sprinted desperately to his car.
50
* * *
THE CHOPPERS WERE just making their final approach to the refinery, barely five hundred metres from their destination. Their crews’ attentions were entirely concentrated on the landing ground that had been marked out for them in a field directly opposite the main gates. A reception committee of officials and media representatives had formed up there in a ragged semicircle. From her window seat, Nikki Wilkins could see the cameramen jostling for the best position and raising their lenses to the sky. As the helicopter swung round to come into land, she spotted a sudden, dazzling flash of light from the ground, away to her left. She turned her head towards it, and had just enough time to register the billowing plume of flame and smoke before something punched into the side of the helicopter and sent it staggering off course like a dazed boxer stumbling across the ring. The next thing Wilkins knew, the cabin was spinning round and round and she was screaming out in terror as the air all around her was filled with scorching flame and red-hot shards of metal.
The explosive-filled steel gas-cylinder that hit the Power Elite was bigger than the shell from a Challenger 2 battle tank. It obliterated the cockpit window, decapitated the pilot, missed the co-pilot by a whisker, and exited the far side of the helicopter, taking a mass of glass, metal, plastic and electrical wiring with it, like a through-and-through bullet tearing the flesh from its victim’s back. It did not, however, explode. There was still a tiny fraction of the fuse left unburnt, and until it triggered the detonator, the sugar/fertilizer mix would remain inert.
Its momentum somewhat slowed by its impact with the helicopter, the cylinder veered off course, flattened the arc of its trajectory, and hit the second helicopter amidships.
Now it exploded.
A millisecond later, the United Kingdom’s special forces had been left without a commanding officer, and MI5 had lost its deputy director. The fireball that consumed them had been captured live on television. But this was just the start of the catastrophe.
As the cluster of people by the landing site ran for cover from the shrapnel that fell like red-hot hail from the sky, the co-pilot of the first helicopter desperately fought for control of his craft.
And then the whole world seemed to go up in flames, as the other eleven cylinders hit their targets.
The pipes, towers and storage tanks of an oil refinery are double-skinned to prevent any leaks. But even two thin sheets of steel are no protection against an explosive shell impacting at close to the speed of sound. The tanks that each hold millions of gallons of oil and petrol are clustered in twos and threes within brick and concrete berms, designed according to safety regulations that demand they can safely contain a hundred and ten per cent of the capacity of the biggest tank. But those regulations do not account for what happens when all the tanks are breached at once, and a torrent of flaming liquid overflows those concrete defences like lava escaping a volcano. Refinery staff are trained to evacuate their workplaces quickly and safely in the event of an emergency, and await the arrival of local fire brigades. But evacuation attempts are futile when there is no place of safety; when death waits at every turn, and any attempt at rescue will be far too little, too late.
Armageddon had come to Rosconway. The air was torn asunder by a terrifying conflagration of thunderous noise, light, heat – and blasts of explosive pressure that picked up cars and trucks, sent people flying, and obliterated the mighty structures of the refinery in a series of explosions that seemed to go on and on in a never-ending wave of destruction.
The explosive shells were damaging enough in themselves. But their greater purpose was to set free the pent-up power that was locked in the refinery itself. The giant storage tanks, the distillation towers, the miles of pipes that carried a multitude of petrochemical substances around the complex: all now became locked in a deadly chain reaction as the fires of hell engulfed them.
51
* * *
WILLIE HOLLOWAY HAD been trying to tell the arrogant little tit of a ministerial aide, for the umpteenth time, that safety really was an important issue at an oil refinery. He was shouting even louder than before, just to make himself heard over the hubbub of the chattering people all around them, and the whirring clatter of the incoming helicopters. Then the noise of the rotors was obliterated by a metallic crash, immediately followed by a thunderous explosion. Holloway looked up to see a single helicopter spiralling down from the sky. All that was left of the other chopper was a boiling cloud of fire and thick black smoke.
A second later one of the projectiles hit the distillation tower that rose from the ground no more than fifteen metres behind him, and the gigantic explosion that followed wiped all traces of Willie Holloway, the aide and everyone anywhere near them
from the face of the earth.
Tyrrell and Schultz were about a hundred metres away, walking down the road towards the administrative blocks, where they were due to have a discreet and hopefully unobserved meeting with the Director of Special Forces. A razor-sharp shard of steel, roughly the size of a frisbee, hit Major Rod Tyrrell just above his right ear, sliced the top of his head off, and killed him instantly. Schultz was unharmed, but the sheer force of the blast picked him up and threw him to the ground. By the time he dragged himself to his feet, the air was filled with choking, billowing smoke that reeked of burning oil, and the ground shook from the relentless barrage of explosions as one refinery unit after another burst into scorching flames or blew itself to smithereens.
Holding a handkerchief to his face to give himself the most basic protection against the fumes, Schultz broke into a stumbling, coughing run as he tried to get away from the inferno. Amidst the thunder of explosions and the clouds of smoke he neither heard nor saw the stricken helicopter until it scraped over the roof of one of the office blocks just ahead of him, dislodging scores of roof-tiles as it went, crashed on to the road surface, and came skidding towards him in a screeching mass of tangled metal and shattered glass.
Schultz flung himself out of the way, somehow managing not to be shredded by the mangled blades of the helicopter rotors. The chopper kept going in the direction of the stricken, blazing distillery towers, before coming to rest by the side of the road, no more than a few metres from a ruptured pipe that was pouring some kind of burning liquid on to the ground. The petrochemical flowed across the tarmac, flaming like the brandy on a flambéed steak, creating a pool of fire that was spreading wider and wider. And the shattered helicopter was right in its way.
If anyone had managed to survive the crash they were about to be incinerated.
Schultz did not stop for a second to worry about his own safety. He ran straight to the helicopter. The door of the passenger compartment was half-open. Schultz pulled at the hot, twisted metal and managed to widen the gap so that he could force a leg and part of his upper body into the cabin. He swept a hand back and forth in front of his face, trying to clear away the smoke to see if anyone had survived. His first impression was that they were all dead, or at the very least unconscious: no one was moving or crying out for help, and there simply wasn’t time to check them individually for any signs of life. He realized that he recognized one of the faces: Nicholas Orwell, the former Prime Minister, was staring at the ceiling of the cabin with lifeless, unblinking eyes. And then Schultz saw a hand – a woman’s hand – move a fraction. She was trying to reach out to him, and through the roar of the flaming refinery he heard her voice very faintly beg, ‘Help me … help me, please.’
Schultz squeezed his way further into the compartment. He could see her now, strapped into a chair to his right. Her face was covered in blood that had come from a deep gash on her forehead, where a flap of skin had peeled away, exposing the bone of her skull. More bone was visible on one of her legs, where a compound fracture had stabbed through the skin below the hem of her skirt. Schultz was relieved. Neither wound was fatal. Unless there were any nasty surprises that he could not yet see, the woman was not going to die just yet.
But if he couldn’t get her and himself out of the chopper fast, it wasn’t going to make much difference what her wounds were like. They were both going to be burned to a crisp.
He reached for the clasp of her seat belt and pressed the button to release it. Nothing happened. He pulled at the belt. Still it would not loosen. Schultz stayed calm. He and Tyrrell had come to the conference in civilian clothes and, in theory, unarmed. Schultz, however, was not a man who liked the idea of being defenceless. So he’d strapped a KA-BAR fighting knife with a seven-inch chromium steel blade to his lower right leg. He took it out and started sawing at the tough, webbed nylon of the safety belt.
The smoke in the cabin was getting even thicker. The air was roasting hot. Schultz could not see the burning liquid outside, but he didn’t have to. He knew it had to be a metre at most away from the side of the fuselage. He kept sawing, working his way through the unyielding material until only a few strands were left.
One last swipe of the blade and the belt came free. Schultz reached for the woman and hauled her up over his right shoulder in a fireman’s lift, hearing her moan in pain as her shattered leg was so crudely manhandled.
That was all right. Pain was good. It meant she was still alive.
He shoved his left arm and shoulder against the half-open passenger door and managed to create just enough space to get himself and the woman through. As he poked his head out Schultz could see the first flames from the burning chemicals licking against the helicopter. Any urge he might have had to be delicate with the woman disappeared. All that mattered was getting her out. She gave another whimper as he bumped her against the door frame, and he could feel her chest rising and falling against his as she sobbed in agony.
The flames were rising around them as Schultz gave one last heave. Then he heard the door crash shut behind him as he and his human burden staggered out of the helicopter. He found himself standing on a tiny island of bare tarmac, surrounded by a sea of fire. It was impossible to judge his bearings. All he could do was look back at the now-burning chopper, try to picture where it had ended up, relative to the road he had been on, and then plunge blindly into the flames.
52
* * *
CARVER SPUN THE car round, put the pedal down, and raced out of the farmyard. When he hit the lane he did a handbrake turn to wrench the car through ninety degrees, then accelerated again as he drove towards the refinery. Up ahead the sky itself seemed to be ablaze, as the entire horizon filled with night-black smoke pierced by geysers of yellow, white and orange flame.
It took him forty seconds to reach the road that ran alongside the refinery’s main security fence. He was met by a scene of total carnage and devastation.
The field where the VIPs were supposed to land held the smouldering wreckage of the blown-up helicopter and the bodies of those who had died in it, or been hit by pieces of falling wreckage. Survivors were standing in small dazed groups: shadowy figures who were visible for a moment or two before being swallowed up again by the drifting, choking smoke. A man was striding up and down, jabbering at people and pointing towards the refinery as if giving orders, but no one was paying him any attention. Two uniformed security men were standing like lovers, one hugging and consoling the other, who was weeping at the horror of what he had seen. A TV cameraman was looking at the nightmare in front of him, his camera held uselessly down at his side. There was no point in him filming anything: the rest of his team, and the truck in which they’d come to Rosconway, had been obliterated. A solitary outside broadcast van painted in BBC livery had pulled up on to the grass and a female reporter was speaking to camera, turning back every few seconds to look at the scene she was attempting to describe. She started at the sound of another explosion, and cowered for a second, before pulling herself together, straightening up and looking at the camera again.
Carver drove as close to the conflagration as he could, then got out of the car. On foot he made his way towards the fire, surrounded all the way by dead and wounded people, abandoned vehicles, and random bits of torn and twisted metal, blown or fallen from who knew where. Holloway, Tyrrell and Schultz had been somewhere in there, and were now almost certainly dead. If he had got to the van sooner, they might still be alive. He stared at the volcanic fury of the blaze, feeling overawed and utterly insignificant in the face of its sheer scale.
Then Carver caught a glimpse of a familiar silhouette, outlined against a wall of fire. Schultz was alive. He was staggering out of the inferno, and there was someone over his shoulder. Carver saw the big man stumble, overcome by the heat and the smoke. Schultz took a few more paces, and then his knees buckled beneath him and he toppled to the ground, letting go of whoever he was carrying, so that their body rolled off his shoulder and fell helplessly
, defencelessly, on to the tarmac.
Carver ran towards the two prone bodies, ignoring the terrible, roasting heat and the poisonous rasp of the chemicals in the air. He found Schultz apparently unconscious on the ground. A woman was lying beside him, her face bloodied, her leg broken. Carver knew that he would be able to carry her away to safety, but Schultz was another matter. He weighed sixteen or seventeen stone: too much for Carver to drag with one arm if he was holding the woman with the other. Desperately, Carver grabbed Schultz’s chest and shook him. Then he gave his face three or four stinging slaps. Schultz blinked, groaned and tried to focus his eyes on Carver.
‘Get up!’ Carver shouted, his throat burning with the effort, still so deafened by the earlier explosion that he could barely hear his own words.
Schultz just looked at him uncomprehendingly.
‘Get up, Sergeant Major!’ Carver repeated. ‘That’s an order!’
The air was getting even hotter, if such a thing were possible, and Carver could barely breathe. He felt dizzy, there was a rushing sound in his ears, and his vision was blurring.
He could just make out the blurred outline of Schultz’s body as the SBS man tried to get up. Carver got down on one knee, reached for the woman and lifted her over his shoulder. It took every ounce of strength and concentration he still had to be able to push up with his legs and get to his feet again. Then he reached out for Schultz.