by J. D. Weston
“You’re not collecting anything, you’re just brainwashed.”
“Easy now, no need for insults.”
“I don’t get it, you people, you’re all mouth when it comes to the spineless act of blowing up innocent people, but a little banter, and you get all upset.”
“Mr Harvey, that will not do-“
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t say. Listen to yourself. You’re weak, hiding behind a bag of explosives because you don’t have the intelligence to fight a war like the rest of civilisation.”
“Don’t have the intelligence?” shouted Al Sayan. “Who do you think orchestrated this little saga? It wasn’t me that robbed the auction house, was it? No, Mr Harvey, it was you that walked out with the buddha. And who was it that dragged this whore out of her cave? How long had you been looking for her? Years, Mr Harvey, years. And you have the gall to mock my intelligence. Put the vest on, stop this nonsense.”
“You put the phone down, I’ll put the buddha down, and we’ll fight like men. How does that sound?”
“Have you any idea what that is worth?”
“Nothing to me.”
“What you have in your hands, Mr Harvey, will fuel my plans to cleanse this wretched country for as long as it takes. The war on the west will never stop until all the infidels are wiped off the face of the planet. And only those who believe in the one true God, and worship him as the prophet Mohammed said we should, are free to walk the streets. Without fear, without pain, without suffering. With food in their bellies and roofs over their heads and future. Mr Harvey, don’t you see? To change the west and to spread the will of the one true God will take more than a few small explosions. This is only the awakening, my friend. This is the birth of Islam and the downfall of Christianity, a religion that has mocked the rest of the world for far too long. When the people of London are untied with Allah, the rest of the country shall fall. And when England falls, the rest of the western world will tumble down around it.”
“You make me sick.”
“You will be one of the first, Mr Harvey, to fall in the name of Islam, but nobody will remember your name. Nobody will sing for the fallen hero. But they will remember me. They will remember my face as I stand upon the ashes of Christianity and build mosques so that the beloved can pray. It will be me that is remembered five hundred years from now, Mr Harvey.”
“And this little statue will do all that, will it?”
“No, Mr Harvey, but that little statue, as you call it, will fund my campaign to free the west. When London falls, I will have all the riches I need.” Al Sayan stopped and eyed Harvey. “How easy it would be to purchase a few passenger jets. How easy it would be to bring the once great empire of Britain to its knees. That, Mr Harvey, in your hand, is the key to the future of England.”
“You won't make it off this bridge.”
“Try me,” said Al Sayan. He lifted his phone. “I’m growing tired of this, I’m afraid I really just make a call.”
“I don’t care what you do,” said Harvey. Blow me up, blow the bridge up, but there’s no way I’m handing this over to you until you tell your man to stand down.
“You don’t follow the rules, do you?”
Harvey didn’t reply.
“Okay, okay. I will tell my man to stand down,” said Al Sayan. “But you pass the buddha to Stimson first. She can act as escrow.”
Harvey slowly brought the buddha back. He stared hard at Stimson, gauging her allegiance.
“Do it, Mr Harvey.”
Harvey handed Stimson the jade buddha.
“Call him off. Now.”
“Easily done,” said Al Sayan. He turned away and looked down to the group of boats. Tourists huddled on the decks staring up at the scene that played out in front of them. Al Sayan nodded and the driver of one boat put the engines in reverse and began to move away from the pack, away from the kill zone.
“Oh my God, it’s one of the boats. I have him. I have the driver in my sights,” said Melody. “What do you want to do?”
Harvey watched Al Sayan’s man from the bridge. The hate was brimming inside him. Over a hundred people were stood on the boats below, they’d all be torn to shreds and drowned.
“Now,” said Harvey.
The shot fired before he’d finished saying the one-syllable word. The small glass window of the boat’s cabin smashed and the rest of the glass was spattered with the driver's blood. He slumped to the floor and out of sight. Women screamed far below, and the police boat jumped into action. Its bow raised up as soon as the driver slammed the throttles forward.
“You just lost your bargaining power,” said Harvey and stepped forward toward Al Sayan. He reached out and grabbed his neck with one hand and smashed the heel of his hand into the man's face.
“Go, go, go,” Melody called over the comms, and the sound of sirens filled the air.
Harvey dragged Al Sayan to his feet. Blood ran down the Afghan’s face and clumped in his long, straggly beard. He smiled up at Harvey and hit the green Call button on the cheap Nokia.
Melody sprinted up the stairs of the bridge. The space was empty; tourists had been told to leave when Frank had called it into his superiors, and the message had filtered down to the bridge’s tourist operators.
Melody reached the top of the north tower. The glass floor gave her a great view down between the bridge’s structures but didn't afford her the shot she needed. She pulled the Diemaco’s strap over her head and climbed off the viewing platform onto the old stone walls at the top of the tower. Melody worked her way around until she had a clear view of Al Sayan, stood alone in the centre of the bridge.
“Mills in position,” she said over the comms. She didn’t need any reply. The plan didn’t stretch any further than Melody going up and taking Al Sayan out. Then Harvey told her about the fall back bomb. That changed the outcome. She could take Al Sayan out anytime, but innocent people would die.
Patience. She thought of Harvey’s mantra. Patience, planning and execution. She could be as patient as she liked, but the planning was out the window. There were too many variables. She made herself comfortable. The rifle’s bipod stood on the parapet like an archer of days gone by. She held Al Sayan in her sight.
Boats passed under the bridge, tourists off to see the Tower of London’s famous Traitors’ Gate, where doomed convicts would be taken in from the river, unlikely to ever see the sky again. The Tower of London’s history is full of stories of death and suffering, Medieval London, rats and executioners. Whatever happened in the next hour would determine if that storybook had another tale of death added to its collection.
She noted the flags on the Tower’s tall flagpoles. The wind was a constant south-easterly, five to six knots. Melody adjusted the scope accordingly, moving only four clicks to account for the difference in height between Al Sayan and the flags.
She heard Harvey had switched the comms to open and Melody had heard their conversation?. The conversation between him and Stimson had been personal. They were like old friends that had never met. Stimson was cunning, but her allegiance was clear. She would be loyal to no-one but herself.
Harvey was going onto the bridge with Stimson. That changed things. He was putting lives at risk.
“Harvey are you sure about this?”
He gave no reply to Melody, but she heard the argument between him and Stimson, and could do nothing about it from where she was sat.
Melody watched the two of them walk across the bridge towards Al Sayan. She watched how Harvey controlled her, and how Stimson let him. Stimson had made several comments about Harvey and Melody, including enough questions that Melody had asked herself. What would Harvey be like? But the answers were always the same. He would be selfish, cold and mean. She’d grown to love the man, he was lovable, but in the same way she loved Reg, and had loved Denver. They’d shared close calls and boring nights of surveillance in the back of the van, but that was it. It was platonic. She loved Harvey enough to be worried about
him. So when she saw him put the explosive vest on, her heart began to race. Al Sayan moved up and down in her sight. She fought to control her breathing but struggled; Harvey was killing himself.
“What the hell are you doing, Harvey?”
He held the buddha over the water.
Al Sayan remained composed. He had nothing to lose. What can you take from a man who is ready to die for his cause? The ultimate sacrifice.
“Harvey, no, stop,” she cried.
But Harvey didn’t reply. He continued to hold his hand out over the water.
Melody tried to regain her own composure. Al Sayan still stood in her sight, but tears clouded Melody’s vision. She wiped them away, but her sight was still blurred. She felt the tears run down her own cheeks.
“Please, Harvey, don’t do this.”
Harvey passed the buddha to Stimson. Melody wiped her eyes and refocused. She found Al Sayan. He turned away and gave a signal to somebody below. Melody tracked along and the driver who had begun to reverse a boat full of tourists.
“I have the driver in my sights. What do you want to do?”
“Now,” said Harvey. His voice was calm, clear and crisp over the ear-piece. And Melody squeezed the trigger the final eighth of an inch.
She immediately brought the rifle back to Al Sayan and saw Harvey reach for him. Harvey delivered a blow and dragged the man to his feet, but then there was a pause. Silence. It was like time stood still for a second, maybe two.
Then Harvey wrenched the man close to him and launched them both over the wall, down and out of sight.
“No,” Melody screamed. She dropped the rifle and ran to the far side of the parapet but could see nothing. Tourists peered overboard searching the water with camera phones, ready to capture an explosion, so the police ordered the boat drivers to disperse with frantic waving of their arms. The Thames is tidal, and the river was flowing out to sea, but its strong currents beneath the surface were violent and unpredictable. More police boats standing by joined in the search and the comms was a riot of noise as Frank and Reg began to call to each other.
A few seconds passed, then a muffled explosion shook the water beneath the bridge. A circle of power ran out from the quietened blast in a violent shock wave. It then dispersed, and the river resumed its flow.
Melody sank to the floor and dropped her head. This time she let the tears flow, and released her grip on the bursts of emotion that came from inside her in uncontrollable sobs. She did love him, she had loved him. She wanted to tell him. She wanted to go back to when they had stood on the riverside outside headquarters. Turn back even further to when he had pulled her from the sea and saved her life. She wanted to see him smile, make him smile and smile with him.
She climbed down unsteadily from the top of the tower onto the viewing platform, and fell the last few feet to the floor. Her vision was foggy and her head was dizzy. Pulling herself up, she leaned on the wall for stability. Slowly, she made her way to the stairs and walked down.
Reg was stood in the ancient doorway, silhouetted by the bright light outside. She knew it was Reg by his shape, his posture. He held his arms out, and she fell into him. Reg held her tight, and her tears returned. Her body convulsed as the sobs came.
“Let it out, it’s okay, let it out.” Reg stroked her hair.
“It’s over, Reg,” she said into his shoulder. “We can’t go on, not now.”
Melody pulled the ear-piece form her ear and threw it on the floor. She stepped away from Reg and stamped on the device, crushing it beneath her foot.
“Take a breath, Melody,” said Reg in a surprisingly soft tone.
“I’m sorry,” said Melody, wiping her eyes and trying hard to focus. “Where’s Stimson?”
“Disappeared,” he said. “She was there when…” Reg paused. “When he went over, and then she’d gone. The big guy was sitting with the girl the whole time, but by the time we realised Stimson had gone, we saw that he’d gone too, and the girl. We were distracted.”
“So we lost?” asked Melody. Her mouth hung open in exhausted exasperation.
“He didn’t die in vain, Melody. He took down Al Sayan.”
“But we lost Stimson and the buddha,” said Melody. “And we lost Harvey.”
“There's nothing I can say to bring him back, Melody. But what would Harvey do now?”
“He’d kick ass,” said Melody between sobs.
“So let's go kick ass.”
“How? What with?” said Melody. She broke away from Reg. “We don’t have anything, no suspects, no tech, no nothing.” She sounded dejected and looked defeated.
“Don’t do this, Melody,” replied Reg. “Don’t let Harvey’s death be the end of you. Don’t let it be for nothing.”
Melody didn’t reply.
“Let's go,” he said, “for Harvey.”
“And Denver,” said Melody.
“For both of them,” said Reg.
23
Down with the Serpent
Melody and Reg walked to the waiting Audi. “Mind if I drive, sir?” She opened the boot and placed the Diemaco carefully inside.
Frank got out the car and walked to the passenger side. Reg climbed into the back seat and pulled his belt on.
“You ready, Reg?” she asked, then gunned the accelerator without waiting for his response.
“Can you get access to LUCY, Reg?”
“Of course I can,” replied Reg. “Easy girl,” he added as the large saloon car slid into the outside lane.
“No time for easy, Reg. If they reach a plane, that’s it, game over,” replied Melody. The Audi’s engine roared out of a bend in the road using both lanes. Melody felt the car control the slide and shift the power to the inside wheels.
“Okay, I’m inside his profile. I just need to connect to LUCY, and I can pull up the big guy’s phone signal, assuming he hasn’t lobbed it somewhere.”
“Forget the phone, Reg,” said Melody, easing the car toward Rotherhithe Tunnel. “Find my jacket.”
“Your what?”
“I dropped the tracker from my jacket in Angel’s pocket.”
“You’re a smart girl, Melody,” said Frank. “I’ll give you that.”
“Okay, they’re currently on the A12 heading out of town.”
Melody swerved around a slow driver in the fast lane of the tunnel approach road, then dropped down a gear. “Hold on.”
The noise of the car’s high-performance engine inside the tunnel was loud enough to alert the drivers in front that a car was coming up fast. Reg looked on in horror as cars strived to reach the inside lane before the Audi reached them. Frank held onto the door handle, but remained silent. Twice Melody had to guide the Audi between a lorry and stubborn driver who refused to move. Reg held his hands up to his face, unable to look at the catastrophe he was sure was about to happen.
When they finally emerged from the tunnel, Melody once again dropped down into third gear and launched though the traffic that fought for the exit lane. The Audi roared past the other cars in a blur. The A12 stretched out in front of them. Miles and miles of multi-lane fast roads led from the city all the way to Ipswich on the East Coast.
“Okay, Reg, find me all the airfields on our path.”
“All the airfields?” Reg replied. “That’s going to be quite a few.”
“Start with the closest one.”
“There’s a small airfield near Upminster in Essex, not busy and unlicensed. Another in Noak Hill, again not busy, quite small and unlicensed. The main licensed airfield heading east would be Stapleford Abbots.”
“Stapleford Abbots?” said Melody. “Why do I know that name?”
“It’s about three miles from Theydon Bois,” said Frank. “That’ll be where she’s heading.”
“Theydon Bois?” asked Melody.
“John Cartwright’s house,” replied Frank. “It’s where Stone grew up, where Stimson would end all this.”
“What makes you think that?”
“
You heard them talking, Stimson’s playing games with him, she wants him. Wanted him,” Frank corrected himself. “She would have had no idea that Harvey wouldn’t survive. Imagine it. Harvey learns that Julios wasn’t the man he always thought he was. He’s devastated, lost faith in everything. Taking him back there invokes memories for him. She offers him work, freedom, answers. You don’t think she told him all that crap about his life because she felt like having a chat with another old villain do you?” Frank sighed. “No, she was enticing him. She was telling him how much she knows, about him, about his past, about his life. She was going to try and take him from us. If there’s a plane waiting for her, it’s there in Stapleford.”
“You need a route, Melody?”
“I could drive there with my eyes closed after what happened there.” Melody wiped her eyes at the mention of Harvey and concentrated on the road, though her head was bursting.
“Where exactly can she fly to from Stapleford?” asked Reg. “Runway looks pretty short from the satellite.”
“It’s mainly small aircraft, Cessnas and the such, but even they can make it to France easily without refuelling. From France, she could go anywhere,” said Frank.
“What happens if she gets away with the buddha?” asked Melody. “What’s the consequence here?”
Frank saw that Melody was stringing out the conversation, avoiding long silences where her mind could wander off to Harvey.
“Failed case? Strike one.”
“Even-“
“Even if we have taken Al Sayan down? Yes.”
“Where does that leave us?”
“Well we won't be shut down, the case will stay open, but too many fails and the unit will break up. The unit’s not official yet anyway, so all they’ll do is place you two somewhere else, and I’ll take early retirement.”
“Was it true what you said about your wife being killed by Al Sayan, sir?” asked Melody.
“I wouldn’t lie about something like that, Mills.”
“Could have been motivational.”