Zero Option gs-2

by Chris Ryan

  We switch cars and carry on to the final tkV on the M25.'

  'Correct.'

  'What about the rifle?' I asked. 'What d'you want done with that?'

  'Jaysus, man. That's coming with me. I wouldn't be leaving such an asset behind, would I?'

  'OK. You take it. And the spare ammunition. Next, how do fie correlate timings? I mean, where will your lot be coming from?'

  'They've a shorter distance to travel than we have,' said Farrell cryptically. 'Once we're on the road, we'll call them to set a time.'

  'Well…' I pretended to measure distances on the map, although I'd thought them through already.

  'They'll have to shift, because it won't take us long.

  From our pick-up point to the motorway interchange is only twenty miles. Say twenty minutes if we take it easy, twenty-five including the switch from one car to the other. But when we hit the M25 it may be a different matter.'

  'What d'you mean?'

  'It's going to be the rush-hour. Any time between about seven and nine-thirty the motorway can seize solid along that section.'

  'It's no problem. We'll be in touch with the boyos on the mobiles. If we get late, we'll tell them to hold back a bit.'

  'All right,' I said, 'but this time I don't want any fuck-up at the RV.'

  'And neither do I. I'm wanting out, I tell you. I've had enough of being chained to some stinking turd of a Brit or a Yank day and night.'

  'It's OK for you.' I glared at him, deliberately not rising to the insult. 'If anything goes wrong, the worst that can happen to you is that you land back in the nick.

  For me, it's a matter of life and death.'

  'Come on, now. Nobody's threatening you.'

  'Not me, but they're threatening my family. What's going to happen if we can't carry out the shoot for any reason? What if the Prime Minister doesn't appear?'

  'He'll appear,' said Farrell heavily. 'He's always at his filthy roses.'

  'He might not come out tomorrow. He might feel under the weather or something. He might just be late.

  How long do we wait, for God's sake? If it gets to midmorning and we haven't seen him…'

  'So what?' said Farrell calmly.

  'There'll be people about by then. Hikers all over the place, coming along that footpath. We saw quite a few today.'

  'They'll not bother us. We'll keep back inside the wood until the right moment, so we will.'

  'And the chopper. What about him? He can't sit around half the day in somebody's field.'

  'I can always call him up and tell him to pull offuntil

  I give him a new deadline. Ach, don't bother yourself.

  We'll be away and gone by seven o'clock, I'm certain of it.'

  Farrell sounded confident enough, but I could sense that under his veneer of calm he was nearly as tense as I was. Thank God, he seemed to have no inkling that a huge net was being spread to capture him and the leading lights of the London ASU.

  At least, so I thought, until he started talking again.

  'And yourself, now. What are you going to do if you get your people back?'

  'Collapse with relief, I should think.'

  'Yes, but on the ground — in the flesh, I mean.'

  'Drive home, I suppose. I've hardly dared think about it yet.'

  'Yes, but your unit…'

  'The Regiment? What about them?'

  'How will you account for the hostages being let go?'

  'I won't know anything about the reason. I'll only know there's been a phone call telling me to get to the

  'How will the Legiment contact you to pass on the details?'

  'They've got my mobile number.'

  'Where do they think you are now?'

  'They don't know. I could be anywhere. I'm on leave — they haven't been in touch for days.'

  Farrell gave a non-committal grunt. 'And afterwards?'

  'As long as your chopper pilot performs properly, we'll make a clean getaway. The murder will be put down to the PIRA, and that'll be that. There'll be nothing to connect it with me. After all, I don't happen to own a five-oh rifle.'

  'This house, though… and the other one.'

  'We took them in false names, and paid cash.'

  'The cars?'

  'We changed the plates for the duration of the exercise.'

  'All right, so you've done well.'

  For the first time in my life I saw Farrell smile. But when he put in a final check-call to one of his mobile numbers, the temperature fell sharply once more.

  'They're suspicious,' he said, holding his palm over the receiver. 'They think you're acting in concert with the security forces, and with the military.'

  'Ah, bollocks!' I went. 'If the legiment knew what I'm doing, they'd kill me. I've told you, these guys are just friends. Let me speak to him.'

  I reached for the phone, but Farrell lifted it back to his ear. 'Sharp wants to talk to you… No? Fair enough.' He covered the mouthpiece again and said, 'He'll speak to another one. Not yourself'

  'All right, then. Tony. You talk to him.'

  'Not Tony,' Farrell snapped. 'They know about the Yank.'

  'Doughnut, then,' I said. 'For fuck's sake, tell him what you do.'

  Doughnut was brilliant, very cool and laconic. He'd been waiting for this. 'Yeah, yeah,' he went. 'BGing. Yeah. Bodyguarding… An Arab sheikh… No, I'm not allowed to say which… Only when he's in London… Now? He's in South Africa, on holiday.

  That lets me out… He comes here on business, but that's in quotes. It's really to procure women. Bloody amazing they are, too: Zanzibar, Morocco — you name it, he has them…' On he went, mainly about the colossal amounts of money the Arabs threw around.

  When he said that the sheikh had twenty-four cars including three lollers and a pre-war Lagonda — in his London garage, the guy on the other end capitulated.

  'There you are,' I said to Farrell. 'What did I tell you?

  Now, for God's sake, let's all go to bed.'

  FIFTEEN

  When Doughnut shook my shoulder and brought me a mug of tea at 0500, I couldn't believe I'd ever been asleep. I seemed to have been twisting back and forth all night in spasms of anxiety about things that might go wrong. The worst was that the PIlk would take fright and murder the hostages prematurely; the next worst, that the Prime Minister would get killed by mistake; the third worst — but still unfaceable — was that we'd go through “the whole charade, and then for some reason the lV would fail once more.

  I had learned that at 58 Cumberland House specialist technicians from SO19 had completed one penetration of the party wall and successfully introduced a fibre- optic probe into the flat next door. They'd gone through the wall low down — so that there would be less risk of plaster-crumbs making a noise tumbling to the floor when the tip of the drill emerged — and by sheer bad luck it had come out behind a piece of furniture, a sideboard or a free-standing cupboard, moved there since the owner of the apartment had gone abroad. The result was that we still had no positive identification, sO the technicians had begun drilling all over again.

  This I'd been told by Yorky, when I had last spoken to him just after midnight. By then he was established in the new control centre, designated Zero Charlie, inside Chequers itself, and sounding well in command of the situation.

  After that, with Farrell out of the way in the bedroom, we'd held one last briefing session in the kitchen, squaring away final details: we'd run through: everybody's roles, verified map references and timings cleaned our pistols, checked magazines and made sure that our radios and mobile phones had fully-charged batteries. 'During the shoot,' I told the lads, 'the overriding factor we've got to bear in mind is this: we know we're going to be acting out a charade, but to Farrell every detail has got to seem credible.'

  'Eventually, at half-one, we'd gone to get our heads down — but I, for one, couldn't drop off. Every minute that had gone by I was hoping for a call from Yorky to say that the assault on the flat had gone in, the hostages had b
een safely recovered, and we could stand down our, whole crazy plan. The Greenford operation, I knew, had been named 'Fruit Salad', and the codeword for a successful recovery was 'Bananas'. That would mean both Tim and Tracy were safe.

  For hour after hour — or so it seemed — I had lain there thinking of a man patiently drilling through the wall of a room using an old-fashioned bit-and-brace, giving it just half a turn at a time, to make certain no sound would be heard in the flat next door. The process I had envisaged was agonizingly slow — half a turn …. wait… half a turn… wait — the wire-thin bit going in a millimetre or two at a time, the microphones listening all the time for reaction on the far side…

  All night I had lain hoping that the three magic syllables — ba-na-nas — would bring our maneuvering to an abrupt end. If that happened, we'd drive Farrell straight to the back door of Chequers, hand him over to the resident security force, and call Doughnut and Stew back to base. The only faint amusement I had got was from the thought of the PIFLA helicopter pilot, sitting in some farmer's field at 0600, waiting endlessly for instructions that would never come. Farrell had let on that the operator of the Jet-P,anger they'd hired had charged them 5,000 pounds in cash, paid in advance, for the morning's run. It was c/ear that the man had realised they were up to no good, because the price was exorbitant.

  But since the money probably came from Libya in the first place, 1 couldn't care less.

  Now we had a bare half-hour in which to prepare for take-off. I had a wash, got a bowl of raw porridge and milk down my neck, drank a second cup of tea and sorted my kit. Stew was in charge of Farrell at that stage, and when the brute began erring and blinding about being hassled I yelled at him to get hold of himself. 'Ah, sling yourself!' I snapped. 'You can cut that out now.

  Once we're in the open I don't want to hear a fucking sound out of you. Otherwise you'll screw up the whole bloody operation.' I could see he was suffering from nerves, li[: e the rest of us, but that didn't make me feel any more charitable towards him.

  Outside, my spirits lifted a fraction when I saw that at last the weather had changed. The clouds had gone, leaving the sky brilliantly clear, and high over our heads a jet had spewed out a slim, white trail that reached far to the north. When I moved out of range of the dung- heap the air smelt fresh and clean, and there wasn't a breath of wind. Ifa fine day was to be taken as a sign of hope, we'd got one.

  Our short drive to the drop-off point went without incident. We saw no other vehicle, and after just ten minutes all four of us were standing in the dark lay-by watching the tai Mights of the Granada disappear up the lane and into the distance.

  After waiting for my eyes to acclimatize to the half light I set off along the bridleway carrying the Haskins over my shoulder. Behind me came Tony and Farrell, cuffed together by a short length of chain, and Whinger bringing up the rear. Though the sky was already bright, inside the wood the darkness hung on. Just like our morning at the range, the trees seemed to be full of wood pigeons, cooing all round us. I knew the noise should have been soothing, but somehow it annoyed me, and whenever a bird flew out from above us, disturbed by alien creatures passing underneath, its wings made a terrific, give-away clatter.

  When we reached the top of the long, narrow field, I told the others to hold on while I did a quick recce to make sure the coast was clear. 'Stay here while I check the field,' I whispered. Tll be back in a moment.'

  'OK,' said Tony. 'Take it easy.'

  With exaggerated stealth I crept out into the open and went on fifty metres or so until I knew I was out of earshot. With Farrell left at a safe distance, I held down the pressel switch of my covert radio and said, Hello Zero Charlie, this is Green One.'

  'Green One, send,' came the immediate answer.

  Yorky's voice.

  'On course and on schedule,' I told him.

  'Zero Charlie. loger.'

  If there had been any dramatic news from London, Yorky would have told me. His brief, professional response meant simply that we had to carry on.

  I retraced my steps to the others and whispered, 'Can't see anything. But we'll keep right in to the side of the wood, in the lee of the trees.'

  So we went steadily on, the light growing all the time but remnants of gloomy darkness lurking along the fringes of the wood. As we passed Brockwell Farm I thought of the QIF, skulking about the barns or hay lofts, and bet myself they had eyes on us. Sure enough, up into my earpiece came a Welsh voice saying, 'Black One. Geordie and his team are passing us now,' followed by Yorky's quick, 'Zero Charlie. loger.'

  At the corner of the wood, fifty metres short of Point D, an extraordinary sight confronted us. Away in the distance the house was dark, but the lower half of the field between it and us was covered by mist lying in a dense white blanket. The effect was ghostly and unreal, as if Chequers had been constructed on the far shore of a milky lake.

  'If that lot rises up a few feet we're buggered,' I whispered.

  'It won't,' Farrell replied. 'It'll fall away and disperse as the air warms up. This often happens on a fine morning.'

  'You'd better be right.'

  'Watch it!' said Tony. 'There's something moving out in the middle.'

  We stepped back into 'the trees to watch. Binos revealed the dark object as the head of a deer, which had popped up out of the. fog. I realised the animal must have been grazing with its head down, and that the top of the fog-blanket was just over the level of its back. As we stood looking, another head came up beyond the first, and the two began moving to our left.

  'You hang on here,' I whispered to Whinger. 'Stay back in the wood, but keep eyes on the lodge and the drive. If you see any movement, let us know.'

  'Roger,' he said softly, and we left him there.

  At Point D we moved into the recess among the bushes which we'd identified during the recce. When we raised our heads we could see out over the field to our front, but if we kept down the screen of shrubs shielded us from the footpath. My plan was to stay in cover until our target appeared on the terrace, then to nip forward on to the mossy bank at the very edge of the trees and take the shot from there.

  The drawback of our lying-up place was that it had no view along the footpath to right or left, and it was possible that somebody could approach without our seeing him. I therefore decided to leave the other two where they were, with the weapon, and position myself farther forward.

  I pulled down the legs of the Haskins's bipod and set it on the deck, keeping the belt of ammunition in the right-hand pocket of my smock.

  'What effect will the mist have on the flight of the bullet?' I asked quietly.

  'Negligible,' Tony said. 'No wind, either. No lateral allowance needed. The only thing is, in half an hour the light will be pretty bright. That could cause you to shoot a touch high.'

  'Agree with that?' I looked at Farrell, who nodded.

  'OK. I'll bear it in mind. Sit tight here while I take a look up the footpath.'

  I went back to the edge and took a scan with the binos. The two deer were clear of the mist and walking up towards the wood on my left. A light had come on in one of the first-floor windows of the house. Maybe the guy's up even earlier than usual, 1 thought. Taking advantage of a lovely morning. I looked at my watch: 0610.

  I walked slowly along the edge of the wood, in the shadow of the trees, until I was seventy or eighty metres from the others. Away to the east, my right, the sun was still below the ridge, but only just, and the sky was glowing. Even as I watched I saw the fog blanket beginning to thin and break up into patches.

  I was fizzing with tension, electrified. I'd already taken one dump, back at the farmhouse, but excitement brought on another, and I withdrew into the trees to deal with it. When I came out again the deer had gone, and most of the mist had vanished. Only a few wraiths still trailed across the young corn.

  Suddenly Yorky's voice was in my ear again: 'Zero Chadie for Green One. Fruit Salad going down at figures zero six three zero.'

  'Roger,'
I answered automatically. Then the meaning of the message struck me. Jesus! It meant the guys in the Greenford operation had definitely found the hostages. It meant they were going in — and in less than fifteen minutes' time! A hit on a single-fl0or flat couldn't last more than one or two minutes. In less than half an hour from now, the whole thing should be over.

  I felt my heartbeat speed up still faster with the news.

  I wanted to run out into the field yelling with elation.

  Thank God I kept my head, because I became aware of a noise to my left, and saw a jogger in a harlequin track suit pounding along the footpath towards me. Easing deeper into the trees as he went by, I passed a quick call along to Tony and Whinger, warning them to keep their heads down.

  Now time really crawled, second by slow-moving second. Behind me the pigeons cooed relentlessly. The sun hauled itself over the eastern ridge and sent rays flashing low and long across the park. The last traces of mist vanished.

  Then Whinger called, 'Discovery coming up from the right,' and the peace of the morning was spoiled by the grinding diesel engine as a routine security patrol went past. There were two coppers in the front seats, but — no doubt following orders — they were looking away from us and towards the house, rather than into the wood.

  At 0626, with the Fruit Salad assault deadline four minutes off, I finally persuaded myself that we weren't going to have to fire a shot. For a moment I allowed myself the luxury of imagining the look on Farrell's face when I told him the score, and the language he would let fly. Then my little day-dream was shattered.

  'Zero Charlie for Green One,' said Yorky again.

  'Fruit Salad postponed. Technical problem.'

  Cumberland House is a seven-storey block of flats on the south side of Ellerton load, in the West London suburb of Greenford. There are nine flats on every floor, with each of their front doors giving on to a corridor that runs the length of the building. The rooms on that side of the block — kitchens and bathrooms — are dark and gloomy because their windows give on to those internal passages.