Zero Option

by Chris Ryan

  I handed the phone over and stood back, watching the sergeant's face go through every conceivable expression: shock, incredulity, alarm, bewilderment. It took several minutes, but I could tell Fraser was winning the battle, because after a while the sergeant began giving details of his own head of station, along with the telephone number. In the end he said, 'Very good, sir,' and handed the phone back 1;o me.

  'Is he going to speak to your boss?' I asked.

  'That's right.'

  'Great. I'm sure they'll sort it out between them.'

  The sergeant looked shattered. 'Never heard anything like it,' he went. 'Never seen a weapon like that out here. Buggered if I have.'

  'You live and learn.'

  I didn't know what Fraser had told him, and I wasn't going to ask; but now that our practice shoot was partially blown, I reckoned I might as well resuscitate my covert radio.

  'I got separated from a colleague,' I explained. 'I'll just see if I can raise him.'

  This time the first call produced an answer.

  'We're on the RV,' Tony confirmed.

  'Has anyone seen or followed you?'

  'No.'

  'Standby, then. I'll collect you in a few minutes.'

  A moment later the sergeant's radio came to life again, and he got a stream of instructions to thin out.

  From the way he kept repeating, 'Yes sir, no sir, very good sir,' I knew it must be his boss. At the end he said to me, 'Well, that's it. I'm to leave you alone.'

  'Thanks,' I said. 'And you won't talk about this, either?'

  I made it sound like a question, but it was more or less an order - and when he said, 'no' he almost added 'sir' again.

  'Cheers, then.' Without more ado I closed the boot, got back in the car, swung round and set off for the ERV.

  Not knowing quite what the plods had heard, I didn't want them to see Tony come out of the undergrowth with Farrell cuffed to him, so I went back down the road at a fair bat and scorched to a halt under the big tree. Almost at once Tony emerged from the bushes behind it. Even though I was expecting him, he gave me quite a shock, because his face was covered in blood, with sweat-streaks coming down through it.

  Farrell's was the same.

  'Get in, get in!' I snapped, holding a back door open.

  Then, when we were rolling, I asked, 'What happened?'

  'Goddamn thorns!' Tony exclaimed. 'We're to bits by the bastards. We got bushed in that thicket.

  Jesus Christ - I never knew you had .jungle like that over here.'

  Back at the shit-house, it took us a good hour to sort ourselves out and get some breakfast down our necks.

  After they'd had showers, Tony and Farrell didn't look too bad. Their faces were scratched, but only superficially, as if they'd been caught on the job by their girlfriends. As I'd anticipated, they'd had a miserable time forcing their way uphill along animal tunnels under hawthorn bushes and through brambles, while the gamekeepers, decoyed by my distraction shot, charged around in the valley below.

  As if to confirm my earlier suspicions, Tony told me that Farrell had gone over the moon about the rifle. When he had seen the bullet holes opening up in the white he'nearly pissed himself with delight. Tll tell you one thing,' Tony added. 'Boy, do those rounds make a racket! It's a supersonic crack like nothing on earth. If the Prime Minister gets one of them go close past him he's going to jump a mile.'

  'No he isn't,' I said. 'He's going to drop down like a sack of potatoes.'

  As soon as I'd got myself together, I called the incident room again.

  'I hear you've been advertising, your presence throughout the Home Counties,' said Yorky.

  'Bollocks,' I told him. 'We couldn't help it. We did land up in a tight corner, though.'

  'Not to worry. The Commander's got it sorted. And you've got your permission.'

  'What? For the shoot?'

  'Yes. A secure fax from Number Ten came in a few minutes ago.'

  Jesus!'

  'The Prime Minister has OK'd it. In fact, he's definitely in favour.'

  'He must have balls, then.'

  'He has. But he's been listening to what Special Branch had to say. They advised him that he's in a dangerously vulnerable position. The threat from the PItLA has intensified, and they can't guarantee to contain it. In other words, they were saying there's a good chance he's going to get bloody shot sooner or later. This operation you've hatched is seen as the best means of defusing the situation.'

  'Got it.'

  'By gum, you'd better get yourself sorted,' Yorky went on. 'If this goes wrong, it could bring the government down.'

  The PM's reaction was what I'd been expecting- what I'd been wanting, really: anything to get me out of this mess. But when the go-ahead finally came through it was a shock all the same.

  Yorky hadn't finished. 'So - you're on. But you still may be saved the trouble. The SP team are going ahead with plans to assault the hostage location, just as soon as we've got it pinpointed.'

  'What's the latest on that?'

  'I'll hand you over to the Commander. He'll fill you in.'

  'Geordie?' It was Fraser.

  'Hello.'

  'I got your local copper straightened out.'

  'Thanks. Sorry to come at you out of the blue like that.'

  'Don't worry. You shouldn't get any more hassle from the law. Now, listen. As for the hostages: we're concentrating on our second alternative. The flat. It's number fifty-seven Cumberland House, on the fifth floor of a block in Ellerton Road

  , Greenford.'

  'Oh, God! You think they're there?'

  'There's a good chance. It's a two-bedroomed flat Quite an old block, built in the sixties. Your guys are going to do an outside recce, and meanwhile we're trying to trace the owners of the apartment. Also, we need to get the original architect's plans, so that we know the exact internal layout. The trouble is, the flats aren't standardised - quite a lot of variation from one to another. One minute…'

  He paused, as if he was looking through his notes, and then continued: 'Various owners have carried out alterations, as well. The firm that designed the block has been taken over, but we're hoping to find the plans with their successors. Also, we're hoping to occupy number fifty-eight next door, to do a bit of through- the-wall surveillance.'

  All at once I felt choked, and couldn't speak. The fact that so many people, all highly skilled, were working away on my behalf, doing their utmost to save Tim and

  Tracy… Suddenly it seemed too much.

  'Geordie? Are you there?'

  I got hold of myself and said, 'Yep.'

  'Take it easy, lad. You'll be all fight. Call again when

  you're back.'

  'Will do.'

  'Here's Yorky again.'

  'OK.'

  'What are your plans now, Geordie?'

  'Tony and I are offto recce the park. I don't trust the PIRA measurements and details. I need to see for myself.'

  'Fair enough. But as soon as you get back, we need a detailed breakdown of your projected movements and timings. OK?'

  'Sure.'

  Farrell had predictably tried to muscle in on the recce, but I told him there was no way Tony and I would take him with us. 'Walk around the park of the Prime Minister's official country residence with you cuffed to one of us?' I had said. 'Pull the other one. You'd be back in the nick within minutes - and we'd be there with you. You're not walking round on your own, either.'

  A few minutes' drive northward through the lanes had brought us within reach of Chequers. It was now 2.30 pm. The day had heated up a good deal but the sky remained overcast, and the air was muggy. I was still high on adrenalin, feeling tense and brittle, both exhausted and hyper-alert at the same time. I'd deliberately left behind the PIRA notes and instructions, but I carried them word-for-word in my mind.

  Once again, in an attempt to clear my head, I was bouncing theories off Tony. 'If Fraser's squared things away properly with the local cops, I presume he's done the same w
ith the security force at the house,' I said. 'So we shouldn't get any aggro, either today or tomorrow morning.

  'I guess not,' Tony agreed. 'But presumably normal security will be operating. If the home troops see anybody acting suspiciously, they'll challenge them. I mean, they may see us walking round, but they won't know who we are.'

  'That's right. We could be a couple of PIRA dickers.

  But we've got to get a good look at the place. Good enough to be able to convince Farrell that we've done a proper recce.'

  'Sure. Take it easy now. Only a mile to go.'

  We were driving northwards along the bottom of a broad valley, farmland rising on either slope, and woods high above us to right and left. I slowed down, and a

  moment later To-ny pointed right, saying, 'Dirtywood Farm. Hell of a name for a house. In a minute we'll see the lodge and the park gates of Chequers right in front

  of US. '

  There it was. The lodge turned out to be a substantial building made of brick, with pillars supporting wrought iron gates. Beyond the formal entrance the drive ran straight along an avenue of trees towards the main house, which was visible in the distance. Here the main road swung hard right, and we followed it round to the east. Three or four hundred yards on we came to another sharp bend, a left-hander this time, with a rough parking-place on the outside of it. A couple of cars were already standing there, at the point where a long-distance footpath crossed the road. Obviously it was a favourite take-offpoint for walkers setting out on a hike.

  I pulled in on to the sandy verge. 'This'll do,' I said.

  'We can tab it from here.'

  We'd dressed as casually as possible, in check shirts and jeans, to make ourselves look like run-ofthe-mill hikers. Our binos could be just a sign of our interest in birds.

  There were already a couple of other people ahead of us on the footpath, so we set off after them, through an iron kissing-gate and across a big open field of young corn. Now we were heading west, back towards the drive and the entrance lodge, with the .house sitting in its shallow valley away to our right. Immediately features began to chime in with the PIIA descriptions I'd committed to memory: the back drive coming in to the house at right angles from our right, the clumps of trees, the memorial obelisk high on a hill in the distance.

  Soon we came to the avenue and the main drive.

  'One camera here,' said Tony quietly.

  'Got it.'

  A closed-circuit camera, flanked by an infrared light, was mounted on a pole so that it could scan the outer stretch of the approach road which lay in dead ground from the house. Without looking at it overtly, we gave it a quick inspection as we went past. Then, carrying on across the drive and up the gentle slope beyond, we followed the footpath to the corner of Maple Wood.

  'Point D,' we both said simultaneously.

  Whoever the PIRA scout had been, he was obviously right. This was the place from which to take the shot. By now we had gained a bit of height, so that we were looking down across a wide-open field towards the south front of the house. At our back was a dense beech wood - immediate cover if we needed to disappear. Our binos could pick up any amount of detail around the house itself.” a brick wall across the front of the terrace; a little brick summerhouse with a pointed roof at each corner; low, neatly-clipped box hedges, rose beds, a big, ugly conservatory to the left, and behind it all the tall, stately building of soft red brick, with mullioned windows, high chimneys, and numerous sharply-peaked gables.

  But it wasn't the architecture that grabbed our attention.

  'There's a camera on a post just to the left of those two little trees,' said Tony.

  'Got it. And another alongside the wall, mounted on a pole. Go further left, and you'll see three more.'

  'I have them. There's also an electronic device of some kind on the third pillar along from the summerhouse. It could be a microwave, covering the walls. '

  'That summerhouse,' I said. 'Go to the bottom left- hand corner of the window. There's some other device there. That looks like a microwave as well. I bet it's pushing out across-this field to pick up any movement.

  Jesus! They've got the place really sewn up. You couldn't get much closer than this without being detected.'

  'They must have a massive array of TV monitors somewhere,' Tony said. 'Banks of them in a control room, and a large number of guys keeping an eye on them. Watch yourself, Geordie. There's someone in an upstairs window.'

  'Where?'

  'See the main door? Go up to the top floor and fight.

  There - the curtains moved again.'

  'OK. Probably a cleaner.'

  I looked to my left and saw a young couple walking towards us along the footpath. I wanted to stay where we were for a bit longer, so I sat down on the grass, took offmy right boot, and pretended to feel inside it for an offending nail until the hikers had passed.

  As I retied the laces, I said, 'Even first thing in the morning there are liable to be people coming past here.

  We can't hang around in the open waiting to do the shoot.'

  'Lie up in back there, maybe,' said Tony, pointing into the wood.

  'Yep. That's the answer. Then come down into the open at the last moment.'

  Under the old beeches the forest floor was fairly clear. There were straggling elder and hfizel bushes and patches of bramble, but plenty of open spaces between- them.

  'We'd have better elevation from up one of the trees,' I said.

  'Yeah, but with that rifle you need the bipod on the ground. If there was the slightest movement in the branches you'd be all over the place. What's the range?'

  'What they told us - six hundred. I'd say that's spot on… I've just noticed something else as well.'

  'Oh yeah?'

  'Those evergreen shrubs - the clipped ones on the terrace. What I'll do is put the bullet into one of them.

  If we hit one of the walls, shit and corruption would fly in all directions. But that bush of box - or whatever it is - will conceal the strike. From this range, nobody will be able to see the real point of impact.'

  'Good thinking. And here's something else.' Tony pointed at some muddy, well-rolled wheel-marks which passed close in front of us, following the edge of the wood and parallel to the footpath. 'There's a regular vehicle patrol along here. Another reason to keep back in cover.'

  As we walked on, Tony said, 'Know what? Anybody who can shoot a rifle could take out the Prime Minister from here. People talk about the special skills you'd need, blah, blah, blah - it's all baloney. Just lie down and fire one careful shot.'

  'OK,' I agreed. 'But number one: you'd need a special weapon. Number two: you'd need to know when the target's going to be around. Number three: you'd need a means of getting out - unless it's a kamikaze mission. And number four: you've got to be fanatical enough, or crazy enough, to want to do it in the first place. It's just unfortunate the PIP, A's organised in all departments.'

  Our next focal point was at grid reference 834055, the spot at which the PIRA had told the incoming helicopter to land for the pick-up. Again we confirmed it as a good choice because it was in a different field, behind another wood, out of sight of the house, and could be approached by a chopper coming low out of dead ground to the west, where the land fell away in a succession of steep valleys.

  Back on the main path we carried on our clockwise circuit, swinging right-handed through a belt of trees and across the track beaten down by the vehicle patrol.

  On either side of the official footpath were frequent notices, white on green, saying PRIVATE — KEEP OUT, shutting off side-tracks and blocks of woodland. For a while we respected them, but when we saw the mast of what was obviously a small re-broadcasting station on the bare summit of a hill, we let curiosity get the better of us. Our instinct, in any case, was to check out all the high ground near the house in the hope we could find a better vantage-point for the shoot - but a rebro station: that definitely needed investigation.

  Having climbed a barbed-wi
re fence, we scrambled up some steep, sheep-mown turf alongside a stand of box and emerged on to a rounded summit, to find that the relay station was dug well into the ground. A flight of concrete steps led down to a steel door in a brick surround, and the short mast was anchored by guy- wires.

  'This must be part of the security set-up,' I said. 'It'll be a booster station, giving radios a wider coverage.'

  Closer to the house, maybe a hundred yards away, was another small summit on which young trees had been planted within a ring offence.