by Matt Lynn
It had happened to plenty of good soldiers. But of all the men who might succumb to ‘the dreams’, Jack was the last Alex would have expected. No man he’d ever fought alongside was more fearless.
But that was what it was.
You could hear it in the stuttering words that failed to emerge from his mouth.
The voice of a broken man.
“I...I...I don’t know.”
“PTSD,” said Harford. “We’ll get the doctors to deal with you. Dismissed.”
“But,” started Jack.
“No questions. You’re a sick man, and one who may have cost us dear. You’ll be treated....”
Jack started to say something, but two doctors had already come into the room and started to lead him away. Sympathy, thought Alex bitterly. Like just about every other human quality, there wasn’t much evidence of it at Unit Five.
As he was led away, Greenway looked back at the nine men left in the room. “As I said, that was a catastrophe. We’re lucky it was just a dry run, and the outcome didn’t actually matter. But it was the only day we were going to be allowed to practise in the Village itself before the athletes start arriving. And we completely blew it.”
Alex watched as the door was shut behind Jack, then looked back toward Greenway and Harford. They were right of course. It might only have been a practise run in the Olympic Village. But it was the only one they were going to get, and because of Jack, they’d made a mess of it. If there was an attack for real during the Games, they would be less prepared for it than they should be. And that was a potential disaster. There was no getting away from it.
“It wouldn’t matter so much if we didn’t think there was a risk of chemical attack,” said Greenway, her eyes flashing from man to man. “Unfortunately there is.”
Harford flashed an image up onto the screen behind him. A simple black and white image, it showed a small metal canister that looked like a piece of factory equipment. But if it had come to the attention of Unit Five there was only one thing it was likely to manufacture.
Death.
On an industrial scale.
“Anyone recognize this?”
Lorimar lent forward. “A disseminator.”
Christ, thought Alex. He’d heard of them, but he’d never actually seen one.
“Precisely,” said Harford crisply. “A Russian Soviet-era device, but still lethally effective. As you know there are dozens of potentially lethal chemical agents that were developed during the Cold War. Any of them could kill hundreds of thousands of people in a few hours. The problem with any of them is that they are very hard to get into the atmosphere. That’s what a disseminator does. It is a fan-like device which distributes gas over a wide area in a matter of minutes. Our intelligence suggests that one of these has been stolen from Russia, and sold to a group in London. And that means there is a realistic threat of a chemical gas attack on London in the next three days. Perhaps even on the Olympic Village or Stadium itself.”
“That’s why the practise run was so important,” said Greenway. “I’m sending each and every one of you for a medical examination for signs of stress. We have three days to go until the Opening Ceremony on the London Olympics. And we can’t afford any more fuck-ups.”
Chapter Three
“Time for a beer, mate.”
Alex recognized the voice instantly. He spun around. Jack was standing in the doorway, dressed in black jeans and a white tee-shirt, his face creased up into a slight grin.
“Are you okay?”
“I’ll be better with a beer in my hand.”
Alex smiled. “There’s no arguing with that.”
It was just after nine at night and Alex was on his way home. For the duration of the Games, each of the ten Unit Five men had been planted in different apartments around East and Central London. The theory was that none of them would be more than ten minutes away from any emergency. Alex had been allocated a one-bedroom flat next to Tower Bridge, along the highway that ran past Wapping towards Canary Wharf and up to the Olympic Stadium. Many of the dignitaries would be travelling along this road. If anything happened Alex would be right on the spot. It was a simply furnished place, designed to be rented out to businessmen on short-term contracts, but for the duration of the Games it not only had a fully-equipped surveillance unit, it also had a stash of weapons beneath the floorboards. Apart from that, it was the cushiest place he’d ever been billeted.
“Come upstairs,” said Alex.
Jack shook his head. “We’ll talk in public. Five will have all the guys’ apartments bugged. It will be safer.”
Alex looked at his friend closely. Paranoia wasn’t one of the standard symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. But once a man started losing his mind, there was no telling what might happen to him. “Okay,” he said. “There a pub in St. Katherine’s Dock.”
The Toby Inn was a chain pub, packed mostly with tourists, but the lager was cold, and you could sit outside amongst the boats moored in the small marina. “Have the doctors examined you yet?” asked Alex, as he returned from the crowded bar with two pints of Stella.
Jack nodded. “I gave them the same performance I gave in the Village. Fooled them just as easily as well.”
“Performance? What the hell does that mean?”
Jack chuckled. “You don’t really think I’ve got ‘the dreams’ do you? It’s all an act.”
“What the fuck are you playing at man?” snapped Alex. “Jesus, I’m hardly a Five loyalist. The Unit doesn’t care whether we live or die, and I’m as keen to get out as the next man. But we’ve been sent here to protect the Games, and that was our one chance to practise in the Village. So what the hell are you playing at?”
Jack took a long swing on his beer. “O’Connell.”
“What about him?”
“He’s a sympathiser with a renegade IRA group called the Irish People’s Republican Army. The TIPRA. They’re...”
“I’ve heard of them.”
There was no way you couldn’t, Alex reminded himself. A radical Marxist breakaway from the Provos, they’d rejected the peace settlement in Northern Ireland, and in the last year had carried out five bombings and three assassinations, both in Ulster itself and on the mainland. They were well-funded, with links to al-Queda, and the security services had started to take the threat they posed with deadly seriousness.
“Then you know what they are capable of,” said Jack.
There was something about his tone that worried Alex. There was nothing sinister or crazy about it. It was the voice of a man who’d assessed a threat and was taking it seriously.
“And you’re saying O’Connell is a sympathiser? Christ man, he’s a Seal, and a member of Unit Five.”
“I know it sounds crazy.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“I’ve encountered him before. In Iraq, when we were both regular Seals.”
“So what happened?”
“I was in one of the hotel bars outside the Green Zone in Baghdad. One of the places where you could hook up with a Ukrainian hooker, get drunk, and smoke anything that was on sale. I saw O’Connell there. But he wasn’t looking to get laid like most of us guys. He was talking to a man called Akmar Hoazini. Egyptian arms dealer, who also worked as a go-between for the Iraqi terrorists and the radical Provos. The Irishmen were laundering money for the Iraqis, and in exchange they were getting their hands on some of the high-grade weaponry that was knocking around the country.”
“And...”
Jack shrugged.
“And that’s it.”
“And on that you’re basing your view that O’Connell is working for TIPRA?”
“He’s Irish. Second generation, but from a staunch Republican family.”
“That doesn’t make him a terrorist.”
“I saw him talking to Hoazini,” said Jack. “Think about it. The only way to launch an attack on the Games is to have a man on the inside. Nothing else is going to work. O’Connell’s t
heir man. A sleeper. They’ve been preparing him for years.”
“So report him to Five.”
“They won’t believe me. I reported him back in Iraq, and the complaint was dismissed. O’Connell has friends high up. As soon as I saw him, I sensed he was a plant, plotting a terror attack from the inside.”
“Jesus, you really are crazy,” snapped Alex.
“Report him, then,” growled Jack. “And see if they take it seriously.”
Chapter Four
“How did O’Connell make it onto the Olympic security team?” demanded Alex.
He was sitting opposite Greenway in the temporary office next to London Bridge station that Unit Five had established as a command and control centre for the duration of the Games. There had never been much warmth between the two of them. Greenway had sent him to what she had assumed was his certain death in Libya, and Alex was well aware that she valued him about as much as the free copy of the Evening Standard lying on her desk. But after the mission he’d pulled off against impossible odds in Columbia, she was starting to treat him with a grudging respect. Enough anyway to secure three minutes alone with her two days before the Games were apart to start.
“The Americans sent him after Charlie Dayton fell ill,” she said. “Why? Is there are a problem with him?”
Alex hesitated. He hated to make allegations against a fellow soldier on such flimsy evidence. But he’d promised Jack. And the man had fought alongside him in two countries now. That had to count for something. “World Leaders Fly In For the Greatest Games Ever,” read the headline in the Standard lying flat on Greenway’s desk. Alex leant across and tapped the newspaper. “I thought there was a single operating procedure for these Games. No risks. No chances. And everyone is expendable to make sure the Olympics go off without a hitch.”
“Do you mind explaining what the hell you are talking about?”
“O’Connell. Jack says he’s a liability.”
“Christ, Alex. He’s a Seal.”
“He’s also an Irishman.”
“An American, actually. From the United States.” There was no mistaking the acid tone in her voice as she spoke. “Big country, separated from Ireland by a whole ocean. You might have heard of it.”
“An American of Irish descent.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“In Iraq, Jack says he saw him having dealings with a man known to have links to The Irish People’s Republican Army. TIPRA. The same vicious bastards who’d like nothing better than to blow the London Olympics to smithereens.”
“He’s a Seal. They have some of the strictest vetting in the world.”
“For al-Queda sympathisers, perhaps. Not for Irish Republicans. The Americans don’t even count those bastards as terrorists.”
“A plant? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Precisely.”
“Jesus, you must have lost your mind. On what evidence?”
Alex hesitated. The evidence was thin, he knew that. He wasn’t convinced of it himself, never mind convincing anyone else. “Jack says so.”
Greenway raised a mocking, sarcastic eyebrow. “A man who has just been diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Paranoia is a recognised medical condition. I’ll ask the doctors to take a look at him.”
“Paranoia isn’t a symptom of PTSD.”
“You’re a doctor now are you?”
“I know a security risk when I see one.”
“Are you really expecting me to take this seriously?”
“Like I said, the operating principle for these games is not to take any risks. Isn’t that right? If there is any question of O’Connell being a risk then he should be stood down. If I’m wrong, then the bloke gets two weeks leave on full pay, and there isn’t a solider I know who will complain about that. If I’m right, we might just have prevented an IPRA attack.”
Greenway leant back in her chair. The office was sparsely furnished. Unit Five was only going to be here for another three weeks, co-ordinating security for the Games, and the building was on a six month lease. The furniture had been rented as cheaply as the premises. There were no personal ornaments, nor any pictures of family. It struck Alex suddenly that he knew nothing about the woman. Married? Kids? He doubted it. She seemed married to the job. But there was no way of telling for certain. Maybe there was some hen-pecked Mr Greenway in Basildon or somewhere, and a couple of tiny Greenways. If so, he felt sorry for the poor sod. There was no one he’d less like to wake up to every morning.
“I can’t.”
“Why the hell not?”
She leant forward. “Listen, Alex. O’Connell was placed in this Unit by General Pendleton himself. The Chief-of-Staff of the US Army. This is a NATO operation, not a British one. We can’t suddenly tell the Americans we think one of their best men might be an Irish terrorist.”
“Not even with the Olympics at stake.”
“That’s not how the world works.”
“But...
“I’ve given you enough time already,” said Greenway standing up. “My decision is final.”
Alex nodded stiffly, then turned around and started walking towards the door. “If anything happens, I’ll remember this conversation.”
“Maybe I should arrange for you to see a doctor as well. Jack’s not the only man who’s been subjected to a lot of stress on the last two missions.”
“I’m fine, just fine,” said Alex tersely. “It’s the Olympics I’m worried about.”
Chapter Five
Even in a plastic model, the Olympic Stadium was a magnificent building reflected Alex as he looked down at the replica set up on the briefing table. A high-vaulted curved roof that seemed to float in the air and the steeped banks of seats to accommodate the 80,000 spectators created a design that was both elegant and imposing. All of the men in the Unit had been around it twice on familiarisation tours, with the security guards as their guides. But the model showed them the inner workings of the building: the sewers, the air vents, the service elevators. The innards that would be used by terrorists mounting an attack on the Games.
“Ever since 9/11, every security service in the world has examined the threat of a terror attack on a sports stadium,” said Major Tim Harford, introducing what they had been told would be the final briefing before the Opening Ceremony in thirty-six hours time. “They are a natural target. There are lots of people there. Plenty of VIPs. A high media profile. And because so many people have to be got in and out of the building in a short space of time, they are damned difficult to defend.”
He glanced around the ten men. “We’ve been through every permutation of an attack, and we think we have made them all impossible. But there must be attacks we haven’t thought of, and haven’t prepared for, and if that happens, it is going to be your job to deal with them. For the duration of the games, we’ve arranged for each man to be issued with a special access-all-areas pass for the stadium. The regular police and security forces will be handling the normal checks. You’ll be allowed through in plain clothes and carrying two concealed weapons each. Position yourself among the crowd, and keep sharp lookout for anything suspicious. If you see anything, act immediately. You’ll also be in constant radio communication with the London Bridge HQ. If anything happens, we want our own men on the scene ready to act immediately.” He paused, and took a sip of water. “Any questions?”
“What kind of force are we authorised to use?” asked Lothar Kriessen. “Lethal or non-lethal?”
“Try and keep it low-key. The last thing we want is civilians getting shot. But in extremis, if you have to prevent a terror strike, use any means necessary. And I mean any. Just one condition. You better be damned sure you’re right. Anyone starts shooting people and it turns out to be a false alarm, there will be hell to pay.”
“What about a disseminator being used for a gas attack?” asked O’Connell. “If there is one on the loose in London, we have to be alert for that possibility.”
<
br /> Alex turned to look at the man. It was his first proper chance to examine him since Jack’s allegations. He was a thin wiry man, with light brown hair, and strong blue eyes. About six feet, Alex reckoned, with a powerful build, and a gentle, determined manner. There was nothing about him to raise any suspicions. But that, of course, would make him a perfect plant. Republican sympathies fan deep in some Irish-American families. There was no way of knowing whether he’d been turned or not.
“A disseminator could be used to spread a nerve gas throughout a stadium,” answered Harford. “We haven’t had any more information about one being imported to London. But if it has, it could be deadly. Nerve gasses are not hard to get hold of. It’s the disseminators that are rare.”
“So if we see one, we use lethal force?” said Lorimar.
“I think we already know that,” said O’Connell.
“Any more questions?” asked Harford.
Silence.
“Then collect your papers on the way out.”
The papers were being issued down in the basement, along with the weapons. Each man collected a single laminated pass stamped with official Olympic security seal, their own name, and the code letters GPU, reserved for the very few men who were allowed unhindered access to the entire Games. Their weapons were Browning Hi-Power revolvers, the standard side arm for the SAS along with many of the other special forces units from which Unit Five drew its men, plus Israeli-made Uzi machine pistols, compact, light weapons that could still produce terrifying bursts of fire if they found themselves in a close quarters fire fight, and slim hunting knives that could be slipped into their shoes.
Alex watched closely as each of the men collected their papers. O’Connell picked up two passes. He was sure of it.