Sleeper Cell

by Alan Porter

  ‘What is this? What do you want?’ Abu Queria said.

  ‘You will shortly make a phone call, Prime Minister Queria. If our demands are met, you will all be released unharmed. If not, everyone in this room will die.’

  Kriel took an iPad Mini from his rucksack and plugged it into one of the ports on the desk. In this steel- and lead-lined room, radio communication was impossible. The land-line phones would work, but he needed a method of communicating with his own men on the outside, and the computer could send encrypted spoken commands directly to each of them as well as audio and visuals to whoever was monitoring the line. By now, that would be half the UK security services.

  His first message was to ensure that the computer link was not severed.

  ‘Any interruption on this line,’ he said, addressing the iPad’s camera, ‘will be met with the immediate execution of all the hostages. This will be our main means of communication.’

  There was no response, but he’d been heard.

  While Kriel checked in with his men on the outside, his two fellow-operatives unpacked equipment. Each carried several narrow plastic strips about eighteen inches long, with a small black bump in the centre. These were looped around the necks of each of the hostages and secured with zip ties at the back. One then took a small device out of his webbing and walked to the front of the room. He placed it on the floor, flicked a switch and rested his left foot on it.

  ‘You are wearing rings of det-cord,’ he said. ‘The trigger in under my foot. If pressure is released, either through a rescue attempt or through resistance on the part of any one of you, the cords with detonate. You will be decapitated immediately.’

  Kriel established that three of his men were dead. The remaining four had disabled nine of the in-house security officers and had begun to sweep the building. He triggered the tiny PX charges in the downed operatives’ earpieces and a series of dull explosions could be heard from distant parts of the house.

  There was a heavy thump on the main door.

  Kriel propped the iPad up, angling the camera towards an empty chair at the head of the table.

  ‘You,’ he said, addressing one of Queria’s aides, ‘sit there.’ He motioned the woman to take the empty seat.

  He stood behind her and spoke to the camera.

  ‘I am aware that you are trying to rescue your hostages, and we would expect nothing less. However, know that no one will be alive should you manage to breach the room’s security perimeter.’

  There was another bang on the door. It sounded as if something heavy – probably one of the marble statues that stood in the entrance hall – was being used as a battering ram.

  ‘I need you to clear all your operatives from the building. I have men patrolling the corridors and they will kill anyone they find. The hostages will be released when we have finished here, so any attempt at rescue will only be bad for you.’

  Again something heavy smashed against the door. It barely moved under the impact.

  ‘Back your men away from the room,’ Kriel said, still addressing the camera. He raised his sub-machine gun just above the woman’s head and pointed it at her. ‘Clear the building, now.’

  There was another bang on the door.

  Kriel squeezed the trigger and a single bullet passed through the woman’s head and slammed into the table in front of her. She wavered for a moment then fell face-down onto the wood.

  ‘Clear the building.’

  42

  Leila stepped into the stone corridor beyond the guard room just as the deep boom of the first C-4 charge shook the walls. Someone shouted; feet pounded along the corridor above.

  She backed up and addressed the two guards.

  ‘Call in an emergency,’ she said, ‘but don’t let anyone else into the building.’ There was a crackle of automatic gunfire. ‘Did you hear me?’

  ‘Yes. What the hell’s going on?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m going in. Log me out of the system: make it look like I left.’

  ‘What…?’

  ‘Get me off the internal logs! If they don’t know I’m in the building, they won’t be looking. And keep everyone else out until we know what we’ve got here. Move!’

  She shut the door and ran along the still-deserted corridor to the kitchens.

  Inside, six of the caterers were still working. They had obviously not heard a thing over the noise of the washers and the radio.

  ‘You need to leave, right now,’ she said. ‘Go to the back door. Quickly!’ She flashed her ID at them and began to push them out into the corridor.

  Single shots, from two different types of handgun. The caterers began to run. Over the next ninety seconds there was sporadic gunfire and three percussive thumps as small high-explosive charges detonated.

  There was then a single, muffled shot from the front of the building.

  Checking the corridors were clear and that there was no one on the stairs, she ran up to the top floor. For now any hostiles in the building would be engaged with security. She had a brief window to find a base to plan her next move.

  The top floor was deserted. All the doors were open. These small ex-servants’ rooms had been converted to administrative use. Some were little more than store-cupboards; the larger ones were offices. Leila chose one with a window that overlooked the front drive and slipped in.

  She did not dare risk closing the door. A large partners’ desk stood at ninety degrees to the door and would provide her with good cover. She crawled under it and dialled Lawrence’s private cell. It rang for what seemed an eternity before he picked up.

  ‘Hello? Who’s this?’

  ‘Reid,’ she whispered.

  ‘Who?’

  There was a series of small explosions on the floors below her. Four, she counted – quick succession, small, high-explosive charges.

  ‘It’s Leila Reid,’ she whispered. ‘Listen. I don’t have long. I’m inside Mapleton House.’

  ‘You’re what?’

  ‘You wouldn’t get me in, so I did it myself. This was always going to be the target.’

  ‘Leila, hold the line, I’m going through to the briefing room. They need to hear this.’

  ‘No! Not until I know what’s going on.’

  ‘You have no idea?’

  ‘No. There were shots when I arrived then all hell broke loose. I’m on the top floor.’

  ‘The delegates and six of their aides are being held in the conference room. One has been killed. Our people have been neutralised or forced out of the building. Three minutes ago we lost the feed from the Goshawk system, so we’re completely blind.’

  ‘Black Eagle?’

  ‘It’s as good a name as any. We still have no idea who they really are.’

  ‘Do we know what they want?’

  ‘Not yet. Five are handling the negotiations. I’ll tell them we’ve got someone on the inside.’

  ‘Don’t do that. Not yet. Whoever’s behind this must be getting help from somewhere. Until we know who, I don’t intend to trust my life to anyone but you.’

  ‘OK. Look, I have to get back to the briefing. I’ll call you on this number in a few minutes with whatever we’ve got.’

  ‘Let it ring. I’ll have to put it on silent and it might take me a while to get to it.’

  ‘Be careful.’

  Leila ended the call without answering.

  Outside, the helicopters swept their searchlights over the building. Additional support would be on the way, but it would be at least an hour before an SAS rescue team would be on site. By then, this would probably be over. Leila was on her own.

  Footsteps approached along the corridor, soft and muted by the thick carpet. Through a gap between the desk and the wall she could see a little of the corridor outside. The sound came closer.

  She had no more than a half-second view of the man who walked past. He was dressed entirely in black with a balaclava covering his face. His arms were bare, muscular, and in his right hand he carried a smal
l pistol. Then he was gone. He hadn’t even glanced into the room.

  So the gang were confident that they had eliminated all the security agents. They were making routine patrols, but were not expecting to find anyone. It was probably no more than a ploy to confuse whoever was outside trying to figure out what was going on. The best anyone out there would have was thermal-imaging now that the Goshawk system with its infra-red and tremble sensors was down. They had lost their eyes and ears inside the building, and figures appearing and disappearing as they passed close to windows would not tell them much.

  The phone buzzed softly. It was Lawrence, again using his personal cell. She held her hand over it and listened. There was no sound outside the room so she risked answering.

  ‘What have you got?’ she said.

  ‘One of the agents, a Mossad man called Peretz, managed to get a call out. You’ve got just four operatives patrolling the main house. Two MI5 agents have been killed, all the others captured or expelled. He thinks as many as three of theirs are down. The hostages are being guarded by three heavily armed hostiles with a video feed to the outside controlled by them. The hostages have been booby-trapped with explosives on a dead-man’s switch. The conference room, of course, is impenetrable.’

  ‘Do we have their demands yet?’

  ‘No. But whatever it is, there’s no way Morgan’s going to sanction it. He moved the talks because he thought he could out-manoeuvre them. He was wrong, but the government policy still holds. No concessions to terrorists.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Leila said. ‘They’ll already have planned for that.’

  ‘And what are you planning? We’ve got reinforcements on the way. Special Forces are being scrambled.’

  ‘They’ll have planned for that too. What do we know about Peretz?’

  ‘SIS confirm he’s Mossad. Exemplary record. They think he might be ex-IDF Special Forces.’

  ‘Shit! They let a Kidon agent in there?’

  ‘There’s nothing on file, but even if he is Kidon he’s there for security, not an assassination job.’

  ‘You believe that?’

  ‘He was vetted by all the parties. And he’s feeding intel out to us. He’s working for us right now.’

  ‘OK. I need to find him. Maybe there’s something we can do from the inside.’

  Before Lawrence could give her an order she would ignore anyway, she ended the call.

  Her odds were good. Four Black Eagle agents loose in the building, plus Peretz. No one else. In a house this size, it should be easy enough to avoid detection. Her biggest problem now was finding Peretz. He was alone, he was outnumbered, and he had no idea she was here.

  She moved out into the corridor and, hugging the wall, slipped back towards the rear of the house. She looked over the rail at the narrow servants’ stairs below. On her way up, the stairs had been unguarded. This time she was not so lucky. A shadow crossed the wall two floors down and she withdrew. Far below her a voice said something she did not catch. It was a one-way conversation, probably through the gang’s intercom. Although she did not hear the words, the accent was unmistakable. This guy was English.

  The shadow moved off. She took a step down, keeping her weight as close to the wall as possible and constantly scanning the stairwell below.

  It took almost a minute of carefully testing each step before committing, then easing her weight slowly down for her to reach the first floor. She moved back into the main corridor to assess her position.

  This floor, above the two huge rooms used for conferences and dining, was divided into large meeting rooms. As she expected, each door stood open and all the curtains were closed.

  A figure moved at the far end of the corridor. For a moment she saw him in profile. No balaclava. Could this be Peretz? He moved off and Leila was about to follow when she heard voices from below.

  She crept to the top of the wide sweeping staircase that led to the main reception hall. The stair-rails were open and offered almost no cover so it was impossible to see who was below her, but she heard them. The two men spoke quietly; not to each other but to a third person on the end of their comms.

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, they began to move away. Leila shrank back against an ancient sword chest and listened. They were no longer speaking. Soft, muted footsteps moved across the stone hall below and then were gone. She had to move, now. She had just moments to make the decision: continue to search for Peretz up here, or take this opportunity to get down to the ground floor. She decided to go down. Peretz would most likely be moving to get as close to the centre of the action as possible too.

  She glanced behind her, but she didn’t see him. Only when she stood up did she feel the sudden tug. A man clasped his hand around her mouth and hauled her backwards into a darkened room.

  43

  Prime Minister Queria stood up to cover the head of his murdered interior minister. Blood snaked from the aide’s single head wound and pooled at the edge of the table. Kriel turned the gun on him and motioned for him to sit down.

  ‘An unworthy death, even by your cheap standards,’ Morgan said.

  ‘We do what we need to do,’ Kriel said. ‘You, of all people, should be familiar with the concept.’

  ‘So what now? More bombs? More death? I suppose you’re going to kill us all, am I right? That’s why you went to so much trouble to get us here. Well, get on with it. See how far that furthers your perverted aims.’

  ‘Prime Minister, you are embarrassing your guests.

  Please…’

  ‘Who are you?’ Aaron David said. ‘Take off your masks and face us like men!’

  ‘Who we are is of no importance. We need just one thing from you, then we will melt back into your background.’

  ‘So what is it that you want?’ Morgan said.

  Kriel held up a finder to the assembled delegates and listened to a voice in his ear. He tapped the screen of the iPad and read for a moment. Neither of the other men moved from their positions or even looked at the hostages.

  ‘Answer me one thing then,’ Morgan said. ‘Answer us all one thing. Why the bomb? Why tourists, visitors, maybe even some of your own countrymen? You had leverage without it.’

  ‘You are weak, Prime Minister. Our ‘leverage’ might have been enough to persuade you to comply, but not those around you. It was necessary to make your people think the bogeyman they had spent so long dreaming up had finally come to pay them a visit. When you have been in the haunted house for an hour, the slightest creak is enough to send you scurrying for cover. The bomb was our creak. And your people did exactly what we thought they’d do, leaving the way open for us to do what we had to do.’

  ‘So you were behind the riots too.’

  ‘We populated the internet with calls to arms, but we were not responsible for the anger that led to battle. Your predecessor managed that very effectively on his own. When people are fed a diet of stupidity, what will you reap but destruction? Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin; they all made a virtue of it. You people are surprised when it happens.’

  ‘So you’ve made your point! What now? We admit to the public that we lied to them? You bring down three governments? Then what? You think your people can fill the vacuum?’

  ‘No. You misunderstand. This is about a much longer game. Prime Minister Queria,’ Kriel said, turning to the Palestinian leader, ‘you will make a call to your head of internal security. There is a change of plan regarding the transportation of a prisoner from the UK to The Palestinian Territories.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Queria said.

  ‘Prime Minister Morgan’s plan to release Raha Golzar into your care. We need to change the pick-up.’

  ‘It’s too late,’ Morgan said. ‘She’s already left.’

  ‘No, Mr Morgan, she has not. For reasons of security she is to be transferred from Holloway at eleven o’clock tonight. Since your predecessor granted diplomatic status to the Palestinian Authority in London, she will be taken by diplomatic car to Heathrow where
she will be held awaiting a private charter. She will technically leave Britain again as soon as she enters the car, and we believe that would be a mistake.’

  He turned back to Abu Queria and placed the iPad in front of him. ‘You will instruct your Mission’s head of security to meet one of our people at Holloway. He will hand over the release papers and return to central London. Your part in this will then be over. I do not expect the order to be questioned. I am connecting you now. Read this, and only this. Any deviation and many more people will die.’

  ‘I will read nothing! Do you think we are not all prepared to die? Our peace is bigger than any one person.’

  ‘Not to everyone.’ He indicated his second-in-command to move behind Aaron David. ‘A dead Israeli Prime Minister because of one act of arrogance on your part would not play well in Tel Aviv.’ He nodded and a pistol was pressed to the back of David’s head.

  ‘Don’t read anything, Abu!’ David said.

  ‘Prime Minister David,’ Kriel said. ‘Abu Queria has your life in his hands. If you die here because he chose not to defend you, what do you think will happen? Do you really want the finger of blame pointed at the highest ranks of the PLO? Any uneasy peace you now enjoy would fail, and you understand the implications of a new Intifada.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Queria said. ‘It would mean all-out war. None of us can afford to open our territories up to the people who would come to finish what this one act would start.’

  ‘Don’t do it,’ David repeated. He turned to meet the eyes of his opposite number and the pistol was pressed harder into the back of his head. ‘Do you not think that the effects of giving these people what they want might be even worse?’

  ‘I would prefer to deal with the possibility of a conflict we can manage over the certainty of one we can not.’

  ‘Read it,’ Morgan said. ‘We are here for a purpose higher than that of our enemies. We will move forwards whatever the outcome of tonight.’

  ‘Very well,’ Queria said, turning to Kriel. ‘We will play your games, for now.’