by Tom Barber
Peering closer, Porter saw they were two thin translucent wires. One end of each was hooked around Stanovich’s wrists.
The other ends were attached to the radiator behind him below the window.
Porter froze, staring at them. The wires were drawn tight, almost at breaking point, and vibrated slightly as Stanovich shook with fear.
‘Clear!’ someone shouted from the bathroom.
‘Clear!’ another voice called from the bedroom.
Porter didn’t respond, moving back and focusing on Stanovich. His tracksuit top was zipped up all the way, despite the heat.
It was concealing something underneath.
‘Open it,’ Porter said quietly, not taking his eyes off Stanovich, Mason keeping his shotgun on the man’s head.
‘I can’t,’ Stanovich whispered again, sweat running into his eyes as he looked down at his hands tied to the radiator with the threads.
As the other officers joined him, keeping their weapons trained on Stanovich, Porter stepped forward slowly, keeping his MP5 trained on the man with his right hand.
He used his left to unzip the garment, Stanovich quivering as six more weapons were aimed at him from just a couple of feet away as the rest of the task force joined Porter and Mason.
As the zip reached the bottom, the two sides of the tracksuit top parted.
And Porter froze.
Stanovich was wearing a vest packed tight with TNT and several rectangular bags of thick nails.
‘Holy shit!’ Mason said, staring at the explosives.
Examining the device, Porter saw the thin translucent wires wrapped around Stanovich’s wrists and the radiator were leading into a detonator stuck beside the red sticks of TNT.
And a light on the front was glowing red.
Porter’s attention snapped up to Stanovich’s face, who was trembling, the wires connecting him to the radiator at breaking point.
‘Look,’ Stanovich whispered, his eyes darting to Porter’s right.
The ARU sergeant snapped his head over his shoulder and saw a circular webcam mounted on the wall behind them to the right, aimed directly at the Slovakian.
They were being watched.
‘Everybody out!’ Porter shouted, turning and pushing his men towards the door immediately.
Across the city, the Middle Eastern man with the broken nose was watching the webcam feed from a laptop inside a car, a detonator resting beside the keypad. Beside him, the South African was also observing the screen from the driver’s seat. Seeing the police task force turn and run for the door, they both smiled.
The trap had worked.
‘Goodbye,’ the Middle Eastern man said quietly.
And a split-second later, he pushed the detonation switch.
NINE
The two cars made it to the ARU HQ in just over thirty minutes; the journey should have taken longer due to the Saturday early-evening traffic but Chalky and Fox activated the police lights in the front and rear fenders of their two BMWs, clearing a path as vehicles moved out of their way. Archer and Josh rode with Chalky, Shepherd and Marquez with Fox, and the conversation in both cars was minimal, everyone saving their energy and focus for what was coming next.
In the lead BMW, Chalky eventually pulled to a halt in front of a white barrier outside the ARU headquarters in the north of the city. To the left of the barrier was a guard hut and the grey-haired man stationed inside pushed a button to lift the bar, giving Chalky a thumbs up which he acknowledged with a nod. With Fox close behind, the two cars drove in and parked side by side in a couple of empty spaces on the left, ten yards or so from the front of the building.
Everyone stepped out, slamming the doors, and then followed Fox and Chalky as they took the lead and headed towards the entrance. As Archer walked behind them, memories suddenly flooded back as he looked up at his old home, feeling as if he’d just found a stack of old photographs hidden away that he hadn’t seen for a year. He hadn’t been back since he left last May but the ARU HQ hadn’t changed. It was a two storey building shaped in a reverse L, the Operations area on the 1st floor and the interrogation cells, locker room and gun-cage on the ground floor, along the long corridor that led towards the rear of the building.
Although the Unit had only been in existence for three years, they’d been attacked here in the past, so an urgent redesign of the building had taken place just before Archer had left which meant it was now more like a fortress, each section designed as an isolated unit. Every pane of glass was bulletproof, a guard stationed on both the gate and inside the entrance and a well-stocked armoury to provide sufficient firepower for the ten task force officers who worked out of the Unit.
Glancing up as he walked, Archer caught a glimpse of one of the rotors of the Unit’s black helicopter. The sight of the vessel stirred a memory from a rainy night in April the year before and he subconsciously touched a thin jagged scar hidden under his hairline that ran from the middle of his brow down to his left temple.
‘Home sweet home,’ Chalky said as they approached the door.
Behind him, looking up at the chopper’s rotor, Archer didn’t reply.
As Fox pulled open the front door and the group walked inside, Archer saw a Perspex glass panel had been set up between the entrance and the access to the rest of the building beyond, an extra precaution to prevent unwanted intruders. An officer he didn’t recognise was sitting behind a desk, protected by another layer of bulletproof glass. The man looked young and friendly but also brisk and professional, brown haired, somewhere in his mid-twenties.
Seeing the group, the man pushed a button and the panel blocking off the interior of the building slid back.
‘This is Lipton,’ Chalky said, the man raising his hand in welcome as the group nodded a greeting to him. ‘Any progress, Lip?’
He nodded. ‘You better all get up there. Something’s happened.’
‘In Brixton?’
‘I’m not sure. But I heard the commotion from down here.’
Without a word, the group walked up the stairs quickly, and after arriving on the second level they walked down a short corridor parallel to the car park, entering the Operations floor.
Up ahead on the right was the tech area, a hub of desks, computers, screens and expensive equipment where the analyst team resided. A series of monitors were mounted on the walls, a large centred widescreen dominating the space amongst a series of smaller ones. To the newcomers’ left through an open door and overlooking the car park was the Briefing Room where the ten-man task force normally gathered, using it as their rec space between operations. Right then Archer saw it was empty, all of the task force apart from Chalky and Fox taking part in the raid at Stanovich’s address in Brixton.
To their immediate right was Cobb’s office, a room walled with reinforced bulletproof glass which oversaw the tech area, but at that moment he wasn’t inside. Directly ahead, Archer saw his old boss standing with the analysts, his back to the newly-arrived team and as yet unaware of their presence. Just turned forty one, six foot two inches tall and Director of the ARU, Cobb looked as he always had, smartly dressed in a sharp dark suit and wearing polished black shoes, his dark brown hair expensively cut and combed neatly back.
Although he had his back to the newcomers, Archer immediately registered Cobb’s tense body language. Everyone in the room was focused on the main television screen and were watching it so intently that none of them noticed the newcomers arrive.
Archer’s eyes immediately flicked up to the screen.
The images were an aerial view from a chopper, hovering above a council estate tower block.
And one of the apartments was on fire.
*
‘It was a trap,’ the lead analyst Nikki said moments later. ‘And we walked right into it.’
The newcomers had moved forward into the tech area, Cobb realising they’d arrived; he shook hands with Shepherd quickly, nodding to the others, but immediately returned his attention to the screen, no time right now for ext
ended welcomes. Standing beside Shepherd and Cobb, Archer made eye contact with Nikki; a slender, dark-haired thirty year old wearing a slim pair of glasses over her nose. She managed the briefest of smiles as their eyes met but looked just about as worried as Archer had ever seen her.
‘A trap?’ Chalky said. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Stanovich was waiting inside for them,’ Nikki said. ‘When the guys were all in the apartment, the entire place blew.’
‘Was Vargas inside?’ Archer asked.
‘We don’t know.’
As Chalky stared at her, everyone else looked at the screen; below the footage of the burning apartment was a gut-churning headline.
Breaking: Large explosion at Brixton council estate. Members of counter-terrorist police team feared dead.
‘Casualties?’ Fox asked.
‘All,’ Nikki said. ‘And two fatalities.’
‘Who?’ Chalky asked quickly.
‘Mason and Spitz,’ Cobb said quietly.
Staring at his boss, Chalky didn’t reply. Beside him, Fox and Archer were just as stunned as he was. They’d each known Mason and Spitz for a long time; Chalky and Fox had left them in the Briefing Room before they’d headed to the airport.
Now they were gone.
‘Wait a moment,’ Shepherd said, confused and looking at the news report. ‘Stanovich was inside when it blew?’
Nikki nodded. ‘But listen to this.’
She tapped a few keys and playback of the raid sounded around the Operations area. It was normal procedure to record the radio chatter and exchanges on raids and armed entries so there was no confusion during the debriefs and filling out of reports; it was also insurance in case their procedure was challenged later.
The moment the recording started, the room became completely silent.
‘Police!’ they all heard. ‘Get down!’
There was a flurry of activity, the sound of pounding feet and doors being breached, orders being shouted.
‘Get your hands up and get down on the ground!’ a voice shouted.
Porter, Archer instantly thought.
A gentle giant, known for never swearing, and an old friend.
‘I said get your hands up!’ Porter repeated.
‘Do it!’ someone else shouted.
Pause.
There was some smashing and faint murmuring.
‘Open it,’ Porter’s voice ordered.
‘I can’t.’
There was another pause, and a rustle.
No one in the tech area moved, listening to the recording.
Pause.
‘Holy shit!’ the second voice said.
‘Look.’
Pause.
‘Everybody out!’ Porter’s voice shouted.
There was a sound of fast movement.
And a terrifying blast a split-second before the recording went dead.
‘Stanovich knew we’d trace the call,’ Nikki said, turning in her chair to face them after a small period of silence. ‘He must have rigged the property to blow once our guys were inside.’
‘But he was in there too,’ Marquez said, shaking her head. ‘Why the hell would he kill himself if he knew you were coming? Why not booby-trap the apartment and leave?’
‘Nik, can you run the tape back?’ Archer suddenly asked.
She nodded. ‘To where?’
‘Just after they entered. When Port ordered Stanovich to get his hands up.’
She turned to the screen and traced back to the entry, then ran the recording again.
‘Get your hands up!’
‘Do it!’
Following the two orders and amongst the smashing and shouts of Police, there was a whisper of sound.
Someone had said something.
‘Pause,’ Archer said.
‘Who was that?’ Josh said, as Nikki stopped the tape. ‘Stanovich?’
Archer looked at Nikki. ‘Can you rewind and isolate?’
She nodded, winding the recording back. Tapping away on her keypad, she cleared the police shouts and background noise, leaving just the faint murmur.
‘Here we go,’ she said, hitting Play.
The recording ran through again but with only the faint murmur; however, it was still too quiet to be distinguishable. The group all frowned as they strained to hear, missing what was said.
‘Amplify, Nikki,’ Cobb said, standing beside Shepherd with his arms folded.
She rewound, tapped a few more keys then ran the recording again.
This time it was loud enough.
‘I can’t,’ the amplified whisper said. ‘Help me.’
‘That’s Stanovich,’ Nikki said, pushing Pause again as the others nodded in agreement.
‘Help me?’ Josh said. ‘What the hell is he talking about? He’s the one who kidnapped Vargas and threatened to kill her. What did he expect your guys to do?’
No one replied. The news feed was still focusing on the blasted-out apartment, smoke continuing to billow up into the sky, the circling helicopter capturing the footage.
As more thoughts and questions raced through his mind, Archer stared up at the screen.
Eight of his friends had just been taken out in the blink of an eye, two of them dead, and one of Vargas’ kidnappers had just killed himself.
And he didn’t even want to consider the possibility that Vargas had been somewhere in that apartment.
As Chalky and Fox stood there silently beside him, everyone watching the screen, Archer heard Stanovich’s whisper echo in his mind.
I can’t.
Help me.
Stanovich was dead.
So where the hell was Payan?
TEN
At that moment in a house across North London, Ibrahim Payan was sitting pushed up against a wall, staring down at a silenced pistol that was jammed into his mouth. Having been on the wrong side of the law for almost his entire adult life Payan wasn’t a man who scared easily, but at that moment he was beyond terrified, doing his best to breathe around the greasy oiled barrel of the suppressor as his eyes readjusted to the light.
He was sitting inside the sitting room of some house he’d never been in before, bound to a chair, his arms and feet strapped to the frame. He’d been here for over a day; yesterday afternoon he’d unlocked his apartment and walked straight into an ambush, three men lying in wait for him. One shoved a pistol into his face, a second closed the door behind him and the third hit him over the back of the head hard before he could react.
Dazed and groggy, he’d tried to fight back, but he’d been pinned down and injected with something, passing out moments later.
He’d woken up this morning, duct-taped to a chair with a strip of tape over his mouth and a cloth bag over his head. He’d strained at the binds, trying to loosen them, but they were too tight and he’d soon given up realising it was hopeless, spending the rest of the day fighting to breathe inside the confines of the bag.
Only one person had come into the house all day, and that was early this morning. Pulling the bag and gag off, the man had withdrawn Payan’s phone and ordered him to call his girlfriend and tell her he’d been out of town for the night but would see her later. The temptation to somehow use the opportunity to ask Mischa for help had been enormous, but the razor-sharp flick knife to his throat had persuaded him otherwise.
After that brief conversation, the man had replaced the tape, put the bag back over Payan’s head and departed.
No one else had entered the house all day.
However, someone had arrived a minute or so ago. Payan had heard the lock being opened on the front entrance, a brief sound of cars on the street outside, then heard the sound of the front door being closed, followed shortly by footsteps walking into the room. Just seconds ago the bag over his head had been pulled off, his eyes burning from the sudden light, but before they could adjust the suppressor to a silenced pistol was shoved into his mouth, the silencer grinding against his lips and teeth as it was rammed inside.
/> As his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw two men standing in front of him, neither of whom he’d ever seen before. The one holding the pistol was Middle Eastern and somewhere in his thirties; he was brown-skinned, his face a woven patchwork of scar tissue, the texture patchy and translucent from what looked like horrific burns. The man was dressed in cream-coloured khakis and a loose black shirt, the sleeves rolled up and revealing more of those disfiguring scars.
Looking at his face, Payan saw dark rings under the man’s eyes, the cause of which looked to be a badly broken nose. He had a strip of tape over the top and it was swollen and bruised. The guy stared down at Payan impassively, his knuckles tight around the grip of the pistol.
Beside him, his companion didn’t have the same burn scars or broken nose but he looked just as tough and uncompromising; he was blond and stocky, dressed in a dark shirt and khakis with a pistol in a holster on his hip. Wearing a thin set of latex gloves, he was sitting on a chair just to the side of Payan and was dialling a number into the landline beside them. He also had his sleeves rolled up in response to the early evening heat, revealing thick tanned forearms ridged with muscle and criss-crossed with a variety of scars.
His heart racing and struggling to breathe around the suppressor, Payan watched the blond man finish dialling a number. The guy then pushed the loudspeaker button and held up a piece of paper with instructions written on the sheet, pointing at it and looking straight into Payan’s eyes.
‘When they answer, you say this,’ the man said, his accent South African and gravelly. ‘One wrong word, you die, my friend.’
The man with the burn scars and broken nose pulled back the hammer on the pistol to emphasise the point, and Payan’s eyes widened in terror. As the call connected, the man kept the pistol where it was then pulled it out, Payan immediately taking deep lungfuls of air.
The Middle Eastern guy then held the silencer an inch from the terrified Slovakian’s face, pushing the suppressor into his forehead.
‘One wrong word,’ he repeated, echoing his partner’s warning as Payan looked at the sheet of paper in the South African’s hand.
At the ARU HQ, the group was still gathered in Operations and watching the news feed when the phone on Nikki’s desk started ringing.