by M G Leslie
Indeed, Price knew that most security teams change shift around 7am in the morning. Obviously, this building could be different – but the chances were, his assumption would be a good one – and if so, it implied he’d been there before and, therefore, added legitimacy to the story he was about to play out.
The security guard looked up, “Morning Sir, how can I help you?”
Price held out his ID, “Just need to get an early start this morning.”
Whilst casually examining the ID, the guard said, “I don’t think I’ve seen you here before?”
Price gave a knowing smile before saying, “It’s funny – I was thinking the same thing, because I was here last year and I’m sure it was a different guy on the desk then. Although, I am normally based out of our head office and only visit a few times each year – so it’s hard to get to know people when you’re not here regularly.”
The security guard nodded – which Price took to be an acceptance of his story. Then as he handed Price’s ID back he said, “I only joined earlier this year – so you won’t have seen me in that case.”
Price smiled, “Ah, that explains it then. Well it’s very nice to meet you – I guess I’ll see you at around the same time tomorrow. Anyway, I’ll head upstairs – catch you later.”
Then as he pocketed the ID and walked confidently towards the lift, he heard the guard call after him, “Excuse me. Excuse me Sir?”
Price stopped and turned, but didn’t say anything.
“How will you get in?”
Price smiled as he reached into his pocket and withdrew some keys – waiving them at the guard, who, given the distance from the guard station to the lifts, had no way of verifying if they were even the correct type of keys. Then he shouted, “It’s OK – I have a set of keys. Had them made up a while back as I do like to get an early start.”
The guard just held up his hand to signal he understood, as Price put the keys back in his pocket and stepped in to the lift. He was tempted to laugh, as the keys he’d shown the guard were actually for his apartment back in the UK. But instead, he put it out of his mind and focused on the operation.
He’d already memorised the plan of the building, so as he emerged from the lift, Price turned to his right and walked straight to the office – being sure to use his body to obscure the door lock from the CCTV camera on the wall of the corridor as he stopped in front of it. Then, reaching in to his pocket, supposedly for his keys, Price removed his MI6 lock picking tools and skilfully unlocked and opened the door.
Once inside, he was fairly sure there wouldn’t be any real security, as it was only a small office. So he turned the latch on the door to lock it again and stepped out of sight of the corridor.
As he walked around, Price spotted an old photocopier. So he walked over, retrieved a small black box from his rucksack and slid it underneath and out of sight. "Call this insurance," he said to himself, before smiling and thinking, "You'll be needing it!"
Then he headed directly for the fire escape exit in the far corner of the office – pleased as always that, security cameras never cover fire escape stairwells – "Most convenient," he thought.
On the floor above, it took almost no effort for Price to force open the fire door that led directly in to the CS Research laboratory – using some self-adhesive aluminium foil to ensure the fire alarm switch on the door didn't trigger as he pulled it open, before stepping inside and quietly closing it again.
He hadn’t really known what to expect. Although, given that it was supposed to be a laboratory, he had subconsciously assumed it would be a combination of office space and a clean clinical environment. What he saw, however, was very much at the opposite end of the spectrum.
The gloomily lit room took up most of the floor of the building. Unlike most companies that divide their office space in to a combination of rooms and open plan areas, this was mostly just one large area with a reception cordoned off in one corner.
Retrieving a small torch from his rucksack, Price started to make his way towards the other end of the colossal room, where he could see a flight of stairs that presumably led to the other floors in the building that were occupied by CS Research.
Making steady, but careful progress, everywhere Price looked he could see all the ingredients and equipment to turn coca paste in to street cocaine.
There were boxes of neatly packaged, dried coca paste – a gummy yellow substance that is the initial extract from coca leaves and the result of an initial stage in processing that generally takes place on location or nearby the coca plants themselves. And then further along, a series of drums and other containers marked as sulphuric acid and potassium permanganate that Price knew were used to turn the paste in to a faint white colour that everyone associated with the drug.
As he continued walking, there were more containers – this time of ammonia – used to neutralise the sulphuric acid – and then drying areas – used to convert the substance to it’s final powdering form.
“Why would anyone suspect this of being a weapons factory?” he thought to himself. “Unless that’s upstairs and this is a cover – but it can’t be – this is clearly a fully-functioning drugs factory – and a bloody awful one at that.”
The lack of any air-conditioning and the blacked out windows made the room an extremely unpleasant place to be. And despite it’s vast size, Price almost had feelings of claustrophobia caused by, on the one hand, the sweet smell of the coca paste, and on the other, the pungent smell of ammonia – he presumed due to leaking containers, as some of them certainly looked damaged. He could only imagine how dangerous that made the environment – Price was well aware of the highly explosive exothermic reaction caused by mixing ammonia nitrogen and water, which was also present in large quantities.
“I think we’ll make use of that,” he thought to himself, as he removed another black box from his rucksack, pushed a button on the side to activate it and discreetly placed it under a container of ammonia. It was synchronised with the one he had left under the photocopier on the floor below. “That should bring this factory to a halt,” he thought to himself.
As he reached the stairs at the far end of the room, Price noted what looked like a make-shift cloakroom with dozens of dirty white overalls hanging up in a corner – he estimated over two hundred and could only imagine how hot the room must get from all the body heat of the people working there. Indeed, he couldn’t help quietly muttering, “Wow, what a place to work – poor bastards.”
Before slowly making his way upstairs, Price looked at the handwritten plan he’d been given. “OK, so the floor above is mostly offices,” he thought to himself – and sure enough, as he arrived at the top of the stairs, it was a traditional office layout with a central corridor that he presumed would take him either back to the other end of the floor, and the fire escape exit, or an exit back in to the lift lobby of the building.
Price withdrew his Smith and Wesson from his pocket, the silencer already fitted, and made his way along the corridor, hugging the right-hand wall to make himself a smaller target for anyone he might meet.
The map indicated that most of the rooms off the corridor were used for storage – some for the product arriving and some for processed product ready to leave – and indeed, a cursory look in a few of the rooms confirmed the map was correct.
Then Price heard voices in the distance. A quick glance at the map again, told him why – there was a cafeteria up ahead – so he turned and headed back to the stairs and quietly, but swiftly sprinted up to the floor above.
The map indicated more storage on this floor and the two floors above – and again, a brief search verified the map was correct. “Ye gods!” Price said to himself, “There must be, literally, billions of dollars of cocaine here! Why would anyone keep that much in one place – it doesn’t make sense.”
However, that wasn’t what he was looking for – the top floor of CS Research was where the map indicated there were offices and records. So, after discreetl
y hiding another two black boxes from his rucksack in and amongst the drug containers, this was where he headed next.
The top floor was also where MI6 intelligence records indicated that their asset, Mudada, had worked – apparently in charge of logistics – arranging shipments and collections.
There was, an office clearly marked, so he headed straight for that – picking the lock to gain access, before checking his watch. He had just over twenty minutes before the black box he’d left under the photocopier six floors below would trigger all them to explode and create total chaos – and most importantly, put an end to the drugs factory once and for all time.
After quietly closing and re-locking the door, Price used his torch to look around the room, smiling to himself and noting that the real world is so very different from the movies. There were no fingerprint or retina scanners – or hidden doors suddenly appearing from bookcases. This was just a small room containing a cheap desk with a computer sitting on it and a filing cabinet in the corner, that wasn’t even locked.
Price got to work. Plugging a USB device in to the computer allowed him to automatically make a copy of the hard disk drive and all its data. Then, whilst that did its work he used his mobile phone to photograph papers he found in the desk and filing cabinet. He was desperately looking for names, bank accounts or addresses – so he copied everything that looked useful without spending time reading it.
Although one piece of paper he picked up, looked completely out of place. It had been hidden, “Quite deliberately,” he thought, behind a number of other files. What made it stand out though, was that he recognised the typeface of the ‘TOP SECRET’ phrase printed at the top and bottom of the sheet – it was remarkably similar to the kind of thing he was used to seeing back in the MI6 headquarters.
As he copied it, he noticed a phrase, ‘OPERATION COUNTER-BLOW’. He’d never heard of that, “What the hell is that?” he thought, as he started looking to see if there were any other papers that contained the same reference.
As the USB stick flashed, indicating it had finished, Price looked at his watch again – five minutes to go – then he heard voices in the distance.
Price quickly extinguished his torch, before removing the memory stick from his phone and hiding it, along with the USB stick, in a secret compartment in the heel of his shoe.
The voices got louder and appeared to stop outside the door, so Price took cover behind the desk, praying they would start to get quieter again. However, his luck had run out – the rattling of keys unlocked the door and it opened.
Price took aim with his Smith and Wesson from behind the desk – but as the light came on, temporarily causing him to blink from the sudden brightness, he realised it was futile – four security guards, armed with semi-automatic machine pistols walked in and spread out.
As one looked directly at him, indicating Price should stand up, another spoke on a walkie-talkie, “Yeah we’ve found him. What do you want us to do with him?”
Price stood up – but didn’t move – just trying to hear the conversation that was still taking place via walkie-talkie. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought the voice on the other end sounded British, as it said, “Take him down to the lab, stick him in one of the containers so he doesn’t make a mess, and shoot him in the head – we’ll ship him out later along with some product.”
The guard with the walkie-talkie waved at Price to step forward, so he complied – his hands in the air – his left hand holding his pistol by the gun barrel – which he handed to one of the men.
As they walked back in to the corridor, Price could see all the lights had been switched on. It was now far more reminiscent of a traditional office environment. Although a quick discreet glance at his watch told him, two minutes to go – so timing would be everything.
To stand any chance of surviving when the black boxes exploded, he would need to be below the two he had stored with containers, and above the one he had stored with the raw drugs. Anywhere else would be very dangerous indeed.
“Can we talk about this?” he said – stopping and looking at the guard with the walkie-talkie.
There was no answer though – they’d obviously been told not to engage in conversation – instead he was violently pushed in the back and forced to keep moving.
“What – cat got your tongue?” Price asked.
Another hard push was followed by the familiar feel of a gun barrel in the small of his back.
In no time at all, they had walked down four floors, and Price could see down the next flight of stairs. The lights were on and the, previously gloomy, room containing all the raw drugs was only a short distance away – he could even start to smell the combination of ammonia and coca fumes.
He glanced at his watch again – ten seconds – he had to stay put – he should be safe if he didn’t go down the stairs.
As they approached the top step, Price started counting in his head, “Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two,” then he threw himself to the side of the corridor, just as all his black box devices exploded.
He’d used them before, many times, but never got used to just how much explosive had been packed in to such small containers. The ceiling shook and cracked from the explosions above – sending dust and debris raining down. The floor of the building shook even more violently – the chemical reaction caused by mixing the ammonia with the nitrogen in the air and the water, creating a truly staggering shockwave that blasted up the stairs and threw all the guards off their feet – in the process, sending their guns, and Price’s Smith and Wesson, flying.
Before the men could react, Price dived forward, grabbed his gun and a machine pistol, and ran back in the direction of the fire exit.
He couldn’t make it all the way though – as he turned the final corner, with the fire door ahead, two men came running out of an office.
There was no time to fire – they were on him in a fraction of a second – knocking his gun and the machine pistol to the floor.
One man tried to grab Price’s left arm, whilst the other withdrew his own arm back in order to land a punch. But Price reacted in an instant – jabbing his knee into one man’s stomach before turning sideways to protect himself from the other one’s punch.
The first man was now crumpled in front of Price as the second one grabbed him around the neck – only to be hit in the face as Price violently jerked his head backwards – breaking the man’s nose.
As blood poured from the man’s face, he let go, allowing Price to turn and land an upwards-chopping blow to his windpipe. The man’s eyes turned from anger to horror as he struggled to breath. Then, moments later falling to the floor and holding his neck, he started to suffocate – making gurgling noises in the process.
Price was about to bend down to pick up his gun, as the other man started to recover and kicked out, catching him in the stomach – this time causing Price to crumple forward and start coughing – desperately trying to catch his breath.
As Price lay on the ground, the security guards he’d left at the stairs back down the corridor rounded the corner with their guns raised.
Despite the pain in his stomach, Price flung himself forwards and, using the other men for cover, grabbed the machine pistol and fired. It was a technique he’d practised many times during training, called Instinctive Shooting. He just pushed the gun forward and fired – in the knowledge that he would hit the target every time.
Sure enough, two of the guards dropped to the ground as the others dived in to side rooms to take cover.
That was Price’s chance to escape, and in a second he was back on his feet sprinting, whilst firing random bursts over his shoulder to keep the security guards at bay.
As he reached the end of the corridor, Price could hear shouting and felt the effect of bullets flying past and ricocheting off the floor and walls. He didn’t stop though – literally kicking the fire door open, setting off the fire alarm in the process, before running as fast as he could down the stairs.
As Price jumped steps, moving as quickly as he could, more bullets started to fly past, so he briefly turned and used the machine pistol to spray bullets back up the stairwell.
It worked, and the men briefly stopped firing – Price presumed, they were taking cover – so he jumped down several more steps in one go and kept going. Then, as the firing restarted, Price could hear fire engines in the distance and started to meet people on the stairs who were reacting to the alarm and evacuating the building.
Being careful not to knock anyone over, Price continued to leap several steps at a time – over-taking other people. And a short while later, with the ground floor door now in sight, he stowed the machine pistol under his jacket, put his Smith and Wesson back in his pocket and walked calmly out in to the street, where he was met by firemen and police officers that waved him, and other occupants from the building, over the road to safety.
Price knew the men would be out very soon though, so as soon as he was across the road, he sprinted around a corner and ran out in to the middle of a road, waving frantically at a passing taxi.
The taxi driver stopped, somewhat surprised by Price’s rather extreme gestures.
“Sorry,” said Price, “It’s an emergency, Could you take me to the Marriott Hotel as quickly as you possibly can please?”
The taxi driver grunted a reply and set off, whilst Price looked out of the back window to see if he was being followed.
As they turned back on to the main road, Price could see the burning building in the distance. The explosives had done their job – the walls of the building were cracked and two of the floors were just a mass of flames – one with random explosions continuing to blow fireballs and glass fragments out of the building and down to the street. “That must be all the chemicals,” Price thought as he suddenly noticed two of the guards standing outside and looking around – one of them speaking on his walkie-talkie again.