Timebomb (Paul Richter)

by James Barrington

  ‘What about forensic evidence of his attackers? Footprints or anything like that?’ Richardson pressed.

  ‘Nothing at all, for several reasons. If you wanted to kill someone that night, the location would have been a pretty good choice. The sea wall there is constructed entirely of reinforced concrete, with only a tiny gravel beach on the seaward side. The Moat, as they call the bit of water just inside the sea wall, is edged with rough grass where Barney was killed. None of that terrain will retain footprints or any trace evidence. As if that wasn’t enough, it rained during that night, so anything that might have been left there was probably washed away. And, finally, the witness who alerted the police had trampled all over the crime scene, and his dog had even pissed on it.’

  Richardson grinned. ‘That’s what they call crime-scene contamination, right enough.’ He stood up. ‘OK, I don’t think we’re likely to get anywhere with this case, or at least not any time soon. Let me know if you make any progress at all, and in the meantime leave it posted on the information boards at Sheerness. It might be worth doing another round of house-to-house enquiries, and maybe thinking about a TV appeal just to jog people’s memories, but I’ll leave that to you. We’ll keep the file open, of course, but must give it a fairly low priority. There’s no point in tying up too many resources on a case that’s probably never going to be solved.’

  Stuttgart, Germany

  A little after seven that evening, Rolf Altmann opened the briefing room door and crossed over to Wolff.

  ‘We’ve checked the architect’s drawings,’ he began, ‘and three of us have been to have a good look at the premises from the buildings occupied by the surveillance teams. You’re right: we can’t do anything clever here, with that bank on one side and those disused shops on the other. The short version is I’ll split my team in two. Half will hit the building from the front, with no warning, and hopefully we’ll be able to get inside before they even realize we’re there. The second group will be positioned in the street behind, so can assault the rear of the premises simultaneously. We’ll have them neatly sandwiched between us, and then we’ll simply clear the building floor by floor.’

  He paused and looked at Wolff. ‘I know you want them alive, and we’ll do our best to comply with that, but the reality is that our target is a very enclosed space with little room to manoeuvre. Obviously we’ll invite them to surrender, but if they don’t, we’ll just have to blow them away.’

  ‘Understood,’ Wolff replied.

  ‘Now,’ Altmann said, with a glance at Richter, ‘because the property itself is so confined, I don’t want any of the local police officers involved, or anyone else either. That would just make it too crowded in there, and I really don’t want the risk of any blue-on-blue action. But if any of the suspects are still outside the building when we’re about to hit it, I want them taken down. The police can handle that.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Wolff nodded. ‘What time do you want the assault to start, so I can warn everyone else involved?’

  Altmann looked at his watch. ‘It’s seven ten now. We’ll need an hour for the tactical briefing, half an hour to get kitted up and about ten minutes to reach the target, so the go-time will be nine ten. That’s exactly two hours from now, and well over an hour before whatever these men have planned for ten thirty.’

  ‘OK. I’ll tell the surveillance teams to ensure they know exactly how many people are inside. If any of them leave the building, I’ll have them followed and arrested out on the street.’

  ‘Good,’ Altmann said, ‘but make sure you instruct the police not to grab any of them before nine fifteen at the earliest. The last thing I want is one of them failing to make a regular phone call to base because he’s sitting in the back of a police van. If these guys are well organized, which they probably are, they’ll have a system of ops-normal checks to carry out whenever they’re away from the building.’

  ‘That’s understood,’ Wolff said, ‘and I’ll pass it on.’

  Ninety minutes later, as night fell and the street lights began to flare into life, Richter peered through a broken pane of the attic window directly opposite the target premises and looked across the road at the building for the first time.

  The property being used by the front-side surveillance team was, like many other buildings in the street, due for demolition as part of an extensive redevelopment in that part of the city. He was on the top floor of a warehouse that looked as if it had been abandoned months earlier. Scattered about the open space around him were camp-beds, folding chairs, blankets, coats, soft drink cans, empty sandwich packets and all the other detritus invariably accumulated during any prolonged surveillance operation. What there weren’t, anywhere, were lights, and for obvious reasons.

  Positioned in front of the windows were the tools of the watchers’ trade: two professional-quality tripods, one holding a high-specification digital camera and tele-photo lens, and the other supporting a video camera, this equipment mounted far enough back so that it would be invisible from the building opposite, but with a clear view of the target through the glass-less windows. Against one wall stood two other cameras that Richter guessed were designed for night vision, using infra-red sensitive media.

  In front of another window further along were two parabolic mikes, their leads snaking across the floor to a pair of laptops running audio-capture programs. Their power leads were connected to a twelve-volt inverter that was keeping the computers’ internal batteries fully charged, and was itself hitched to a heavy-duty car battery, with another standing beside it as a spare. On a low shelf made from a short length of wood resting on a few bricks stood spare batteries for the mikes and cameras, plus a pile of blank CDs so that recordings could be burnt onto portable media, plus an electrician’s tool kit and a number of boxes presumably holding additional spares for the surveillance equipment. A good example, Richter thought, of belt-and-braces, simple German efficiency.

  As well as Richter and Wolff, four other men were present in the attic, all members of the surveillance team. Every one of them looked bored, which wasn’t entirely surprising, since long-term surveillance is one of the most tedious occupations known to man, but at least this particular operation was now entering its final phase.

  Richter turned his attention back to the building opposite and studied it for a couple of minutes, figuring out the angles and approach paths. What he saw made him glad he wasn’t going to have to take part in the assault.

  In one respect, the terrorists had chosen their base well. One side of their building was protected by the solid square structure of the bank, while on the other the row of derelict shops ensured nobody could approach from that direction without being easily spotted. The wide pavement meant that anyone walking towards the property would be clearly visible from the upper floors, and the watchers confirmed that they’d seen frequent movement behind a second-floor window, indicating that a sentry was regularly posted there. A metal grille covered both the front display window and the original entrance to the shop, and the residential door beside it was solid wood, possibly even steel-lined. Nobody could get close enough to confirm that. From the architects’ plans, they knew that the same door opened onto a narrow hallway, and an equally narrow staircase that gave access to the original living quarters situated on the first floor, and then to the storerooms above. This restricted access meant that a group of well-armed defenders could probably hold off an attacking force for some time.

  But the corollary was that the occupants themselves were effectively trapped in a building with only two entrances, which was hardly ideal from a defensive point of view.

  ‘It won’t be easy,’ Wolff muttered.

  ‘No,’ Richter agreed. ‘If I were Altmann, I’d be worried about booby-traps on that staircase, and probably attached to the front door as well, not to mention the clear field of fire these bastards will have from the upper floors.’

  ‘He is. He’s discussed all those problems with me, but the reality is that there�
��s no other way in. Except through the back door, which they’ll be hitting simultaneously.’

  ‘How many are inside the premises right now?’

  Wolff conferred briefly with the leader of the surveillance team. ‘Eight at the moment,’ he said, ‘including Morschel. Two of the players left together about two hours ago, but I’ve got other surveillance teams following them.’

  Richter glanced at his watch. ‘About fifteen minutes to go,’ he said. ‘I’ll put that stuff on,’ he gestured at a large bag on the floor behind him, ‘then I’ll find somewhere at the end of the street close enough to see what’s going on, but far enough away so I won’t irritate Rolf Altmann.’

  ‘You could just watch what happens from here,’ Wolff suggested.

  Richter shook his head. ‘Thanks, but I’d rather be down there on the street, just in case.’

  He opened the bag and pulled out a Kevlar waistcoat, shrugged off his jacket, and put on the body armour, making sure that the straps were tight. Then he donned a shoulder holster and replaced his jacket. From inside the bag, he extracted a small plastic carry-case with ‘SiG’ stencilled on it in white paint. He opened this and took out a P226 semi-automatic pistol. Having first checked that there was no magazine in the butt, he racked the slide back to clear the breech as a final safety check. There were also two magazines in the case, and he took both out and methodically loaded them to capacity with shells from a box of fifty 9-millimetre Parabellum rounds. One magazine he slid into a pouch on the shoulder holster and the other he inserted in the P226. He pulled back the slide again and let it run forward to strip the top cartridge from the magazine and chamber it. Then he holstered the fully loaded pistol.

  ‘You don’t speak German,’ Wolff pointed out, as he handed Richter the two-way radio to attach to his belt, watching as he slipped the speaker into his ear and clipped the microphone to his lapel, ‘but Altmann and several of his men do speak English, so if you see anything you think they need to know about just press this’ – he indicated a red button on the side of the unit – ‘and then speak.’

  ‘Right, got it.’

  ‘There’ll be quite a lot of chatter on that net,’ Wolff warned. ‘You’ll hear the GSG 9 personnel talking, but both surveillance teams will be on it too, plus the output from the parabolic mikes as well. Now, where exactly are you going to be?’

  Richter gestured to his left. ‘Down there, I think, at the opposite end of the street from the bank. There are plenty of cars parked along the kerb, so I’ll be able to keep out of sight, but I’ll still only be about seventy yards from the target premises.’

  Wolff pointed in the opposite direction, towards a group of shadowy figures now moving cautiously towards the bank. Behind them, Richter could see barriers being positioned at the side of the road as the police prepared to close off all vehicular and pedestrian access.

  ‘You’d better go now,’ Wolff said. ‘Altmann and his men are almost in position.’

  ‘Right.’ Richter turned away and headed for the staircase.

  Four minutes later, having worked his way around to the location he’d earlier selected, via a parallel street, he was watching the drama unfolding in front of him and listening to crisp commands and acknowledgements in his earpiece. Altmann had assembled his group alongside the bank, and was obviously waiting for the other team to report they were ready to begin their assault from the rear.

  Richter studied the empty buildings to his left, checking angles, then switched his gaze to the area immediately beside the bank. Then he glanced back to his left. Something about the layout of the joint structure was bothering him and he was also trying to remember something that Wolff, or maybe somebody else, had said. Something that might have seemed unimportant at the time, but which now seemed relevant.

  Then his attention was distracted by a sudden silence on the net. The flow of commands and acknowledgements had suddenly ceased after a single word in German, which Richter guessed meant ‘Wait’. That didn’t make sense until he heard, in the background, the faint sound of a telephone, possibly a mobile judging from its tone. He assumed he was now hearing the output from one of the parabolic mikes. With a sudden overwhelming feeling of déjà vu, he thought about Onex and the assault on the apartment by the Swiss counter-terror specialists.

  ‘Christ on a bike, not again,’ he muttered, listening intently, just as everyone else on the net must be doing.

  Then he heard distant shouts – the mikes picking up these noises through the open windows of the target building – and then the unmistakable sounds of running feet and the cocking of weapons. The conclusion to be drawn was as inevitable as it was illogical. Yet again, at the precise moment the assault was due to begin, somebody had tipped off the terrorists. What Richter didn’t know was whether the occupants of the building had posted a watcher somewhere nearby, perhaps in a building close to the one Wolff’s surveillance team was occupying, or whether one of the two missing members of the cell had guessed they were being followed and had telephoned a warning.

  But whatever the truth regarding the tip-off, nothing could be done about it at that moment. The assault was already going ahead, although the element of surprise – perhaps the most important element in the GSG 9 plan – had obviously been lost. Even as Richter stared down the street, it began. He heard further shouts over the net, this time from Altmann’s men, and then watched as half a dozen black-clad troopers ran out, weapons held ready, from behind the side wall of the bank towards the front door of the derelict shop.

  They’d barely left the cover of the bank wall when Richter heard the sound of breaking glass from the target premises, a faint noise that was immediately followed by the clamour of an assault rifle on full auto, as somebody fired down at the advancing troops from one of the second-floor windows. He was too far away to identify the weapon, but it sounded like an AK47 or one of its multifarious variants. Richter had heard Kalashnikovs often enough to recognize the type. The effect was immediate and dramatic. Two of the black-clad figures staggered and then tumbled to the ground, the weapons falling from their grasp, but a third paused briefly and fired his weapon up towards the window. Compared to the noisy rattle of the Kalashnikov, the sound of it was oddly muted, but a moment later the night was ripped apart as a grenade detonated inside the second-floor storeroom. The AK47 was instantly silenced, and the four remaining troops continued their rapid, weaving approach towards the front of the abandoned shop.

  As one of them crouched by the entrance, Richter realized he was setting small charges to blow the door off its hinges, while the other three stepped back, weapons aimed at the windows above and in front of them, looking for targets. Then the door charges blew, and seconds later all four men vanished inside the building.

  The moment they entered, the vacant property echoed with the sound of automatic weapons fire, long bursts interspersed with shorter, three-round groups that Richter guessed were fired by the GSG 9 specialists. It sounded to him as if Wolff’s original instruction for Altmann to take the bad guys alive had just been superseded. All he could hope was that, once the shooting stopped, they’d still find something in the building to help them identify whatever target these terrorists had in mind for London.

  Even that possibility began to look somewhat slim as a colossal explosion rocked the entire street, while smoke and flames erupted from the burst-open door and the first- and second-floor windows of the building. Richter knew immediately this was far too big a blast to be a grenade, or even several grenades, and he guessed that the terrorists had booby-trapped either an internal door or, more likely, the narrow stairwell. Anyway, someone had just triggered it – he hoped one of the terrorists, but realized it had more probably been a GSG 9 trooper. Even the most inept of terrorists would surely remember behind which door they’d placed a lethal bomb.

  Richter’s impulse was to run along the street and give what assistance he could, but he knew that would be counter-productive. The GSG 9 personnel were professionally tr
ained for this kind of operation, while he wasn’t, and the most likely result of him blundering in now would be to collect a stray bullet for his trouble.

  So he stood his ground and watched and listened, staring at the stricken building, with the P226 cocked and ready in his right hand. The sound of gunfire continued loud but sporadic, and was interspersed with the deeper barks of grenades exploding as, he presumed, the GSG 9 men cleared the premises room by room. Smoke still billowed from the windows on the upper floors, and Richter guessed that the detonation of the booby-trap had started one or more fires inside the property.

  Then Richter realized what had been bugging him, and it was something Wolff had told him while giving his initial briefing. The German had explained that their mikes had detected sounds that could easily have been tunnelling, but this noise hadn’t been coming from the party wall adjoining the bank, as they might have expected. The row of empty shops, each with living accommodation on the first floor and storerooms above that, were all virtually identical in layout to the one currently under attack. From his own experience, Richter believed you had a better chance of surviving if you always knew more than one way out, and from the start it had puzzled him that the suspects had chosen a safe house with only two entrances. It was simply too restricting. But if you considered the layout of the building in conjunction with the sounds Wolff’s men had detected, there was an obvious answer: the terrorists did have another escape route. The hammering noises had been made as they knocked holes through the dividing walls between the other terraced properties, either passing through the living areas or the storerooms.

  Even as this realization dawned, Richter was suddenly aware of indistinct movements behind the dusty plate-glass window of the deserted shop immediately to his left, the last in the entire row. He could just make out faint shadows behind the glass, figures moving quickly and with obvious purpose.

  The radio net was again alive with shouted orders and acknowledgements, all in German, so he was unsure if anyone would react to what he was about to say. The GSG 9 men obviously had their hands full, but he tried anyway, pressing the transmit button even as he ducked down behind a parked car, his whole attention now fixed on the last shop in the row.