Ultimatum

by Simon Kernick

  He removed the missile launcher from the holdall at his feet. The last time he’d fired a Stinger he’d brought down a helicopter in the Western Congo containing a high-ranking mining executive. They were extremely simple to use and very accurate if you knew what you were doing, which Voorhess did. He gave the launcher a quick inspection. It looked new, and appeared to be in perfect working order. But he still had a nagging feeling that something wasn’t right.

  Putting the missile back down on the ground, he walked over to the edge of the garden and looked down at the empty street below. Lights were on in most of the houses on the opposite side, and in one of the windows he could see two boys of about twelve, faces pressed to a single PC screen, looks of intense concentration on their pale, round faces. Voorhess felt sorry for them. When he’d been their age he was out exploring the dusty hills and wooded creeks round his parents’ farm, hunting deer and fishing for trout, enjoying the sunshine and the fresh air.

  And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw it. A marked police car cruising past the end of the street, sirens off. Moving slowly.

  For Voorhess, this and the absence of planes in the night sky was too much of a coincidence. He knew all about the client’s ultimatum, the fact that he had to fire the missile at eight p.m., but to stay put much longer was simply too risky. He looked at his watch. Just after 7.30. Not enough time to void the contract.

  He’d have to get this thing over and done with soon. With a deep breath, he turned round and looked towards his target.

  Fifty

  19.32

  BOLT WAS SITTING in the car waiting for an update on the suspect Shogun’s route from the control room at Scotland Yard when Tina yanked open the driver’s-side door and leaned in, her eyes alight with excitement. ‘I think I know what their target is. Look.’ She grabbed him by the arm and almost pulled him out of the car, pointing up into the distance over the lock-up garages.

  Bolt followed her arm to where London’s newest architectural masterpiece, the Shard, stretched up a thousand feet into the sky, barely half a mile distant. It was swathed almost completely in darkness except for a thin strip of light round the observation deck.

  ‘Isn’t tonight the official opening?’ continued Tina.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Bolt replied. ‘If it is, surely they’d have cancelled it after everything that’s happened today?’

  ‘But the lights are on up there and the last I heard the Prime Minister was telling everyone to keep calm and carry on as usual. They’ve got all sorts of dignitaries attending. It’s a great target, Mike. Look at it. The party’s right there on the observation deck. This can’t be a coincidence.’

  ‘Shit. We need to find out if that Shogun’s still moving. If it is, then it’s unlikely the Shard’s the target.’ But even as he spoke the words, he didn’t believe them.

  Clutching the radio to his ear, he immediately re-established contact with the control room at Scotland Yard.

  ‘Have we got a line on what’s happening with the suspect vehicle, over?’ he asked, staring up at the Shard, wondering how on earth he’d overlooked it as a potential target.

  ‘Control to Car One,’ said the female controller, ‘we can now confirm that the suspect vehicle went through a camera on the A2198 Long Lane at 19.09, and there have been no further sightings. Over.’

  Bolt felt his heart sink. ‘So the Shogun’s stationary? Can you triangulate an approximate location for it, over?’

  ‘We’re just waiting for Hendon to get back to us with that, over,’ answered the controller, referring to the police Data Centre where all the data from the UK’s vast network of CCTV and ANPR cameras was kept.

  ‘We need to know urgently if it’s within missile range of the Shard,’ Bolt told her. ‘We believe the Shard may be the terrorists’ target. Can you confirm whether tonight is the opening night party? Over.’

  There was a commotion and the sound of raised voices at the other end of the radio as the people in the control room at Scotland Yard processed this new information. In the background, he could hear Commander Ingrams shouting to someone to find out.

  Half a minute later, Ingrams’s voice came over the radio. ‘Mike, I can confirm it is the opening-night party tonight. It started at seven. We’re going to warn the owners and get the building evacuated immediately. We’ve also just got confirmation from Hendon that the Shogun’s somewhere in an area of Bermondsey bordered by Long Lane in the north and the New Kent Road in the south. It’s about eight hundred by eight hundred yards.’

  ‘Jesus. That’s a hell of a wide area to cover.’

  ‘I know. We’re going to flood it with officers. Hopefully it’ll put the shooter off firing if he sees police everywhere, and we’ve still got twenty minutes until the deadline. We’re going to need you, and the ARV units with you, down there to help right away. We’ll send you the exact coordinates now. Over and out.’

  Bolt gestured to let the two ARV drivers know they were on the move, and he and Tina jumped back into Islington nick’s battered Ford Focus.

  ‘It looks like you were right,’ he told her as he did a rapid three-point turn and drove back out on to Gowland Street in a screech of tyres.

  ‘That’s only an achievement if we stop him,’ she said as Bolt hurtled down the street, with the ARVs following.

  Fifty-one

  19.41

  GINA BURNHAM-JONES FELT like she was on top of the world as she stared through the huge floor-to-ceiling glass windows, more than thirty feet high, at the carpet of lights spread below her. She could see the arc of the Thames as it did a sweeping right turn past the Gherkin and the NatWest Tower, snaked under Tower Bridge, with the Tower of London just beyond it, and then alongside Canary Wharf, before its dark waters slipped away into the distance, towards the sea.

  ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ she whispered, squeezing Matt’s hand.

  He smiled. ‘So it was worth the surprise, then?’

  She smiled back. ‘It was well worth it. A few hours ago I was washing Maddie’s clothes and cleaning the bathroom. And now here I am, drinking champagne and hobnobbing with the rich and famous.’

  The observation deck of the Shard ran right round the building on three floors. Number 69, the central floor, where she and Matt now stood, was crowded with guests attending the opening-night party. Above their heads, and beyond the open-air observation deck on the seventy-second floor, Gina could see the shards of glass that made up the top of the tower as they disappeared into the night sky like icy, stretching fingers.

  The whole thing was incredible. For the first time in her life, Gina really didn’t know where to look. She’d already recognized several TV personalities, a well-known businessman, and at least two gold medallists from London 2012, all milling about in groups as immaculately turned-out young waiters and waitresses moved among them dispensing a never-ending flow of expensive-looking canapés, and even more expensive-looking drinks. No one seemed to be talking about the bombs, which made Gina feel a little foolish for worrying so much. Thankfully, security coming into the building had been extremely tight. All the guests had passed through metal scanners and had had their bags searched before getting into the lifts, and she was pleased to see that everyone looked like they belonged.

  She noticed a TV cameraman filming proceedings while a female reporter stalked the area with a mike in her hand, clearly prowling for someone to interview. Gina turned away quickly, having no desire to embarrass herself on TV.

  ‘No offence,’ she said, putting her arm through Matt’s and moving close to him, ‘but how did you get an invite to a swanky do like this?’

  ‘Because I’m handsome, debonair and popular,’ he answered.

  Gina raised a sceptical eyebrow, and he lowered his eyes and gave a sheepish smile.

  ‘A few of us ordinary Joes got an invite if we’d done something for the community. I won a bravery award once. I guess it qualified me.’

  ‘You never told me about that.’

/>   He shrugged. ‘You never asked.’

  She loved Matt’s modesty, and the fact that he never felt the need to brag, and she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.

  He kissed her back, hard, and when they pulled away a second later he must have seen something in her expression because he held her tightly, looked into her eyes and said, ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you something.’

  Gina smiled at him. She felt giddy, light-headed, and it wasn’t the alcohol. She suddenly felt good about her life for the first time in a long while.

  At that moment there was a commotion over by the lifts, and Gina turned to see half a dozen uniformed security officials emerge, a sense of urgency about them. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid we’re going to have to bring the party to a temporary halt,’ the most senior of them announced, shouting to make himself heard above the noise of conversation, as the other officials fanned out into the room. ‘We need to evacuate the observation deck.’

  There was a sudden silence, and then, almost as one, everyone moved rapidly towards the lifts, the noise level rising again as fear spread round the room. ‘Please don’t worry, this is purely precautionary,’ shouted the official. ‘If you can just form an orderly queue at the lifts, we can get everyone down far quicker.’ But there was an edge to his voice as he spoke, and Gina could see he was nervous. So was everyone else, as it rapidly became clear to them how exposed they were up there, almost a thousand feet above London. They crowded around the lift doors, everyone wanting to be on the first lift down.

  Matt, though, remained perfectly calm. ‘Don’t worry, Gina, everything will be fine.’ He pulled out his warrant card, and stopped one of the officials. ‘I’m a police officer. Can you tell me what’s going on?’

  ‘We’ve had intelligence that there might be an attack on the building,’ said the official as quietly as possible.

  ‘What kind of attack?’

  ‘We don’t know, but we need to get everyone out as soon as possible.’

  Matt nodded. ‘I’ll get up to the top deck and bring people down.’ He turned to Gina, giving her a reassuring smile as he took her firmly by the arm. ‘Go over to the lifts and try and stay as far away from the windows as possible. I’ll be with you in a minute.’

  And before she had a chance to say another word to him, he turned and disappeared into the crowd.

  Fifty-two

  19.45

  ON THE ROOF half a mile away, Voorhess slipped on a pair of earphones, having finished his inspection of the Stinger. Then he inserted the battery coolant unit into the launcher’s hand guard, shooting a stream of argon gas into the system, along with a chemical energy charge that gave the missile the power it needed to reach its target.

  It was now ready to fire.

  Getting down on one knee, with his back to the southern edge of the roof to allow for backdraft, and camouflaged by all the pot plants, he rested the missile on his shoulder and slowly lifted the launcher until it was pointed at the lights on the main observation deck of the Shard, sixty-nine storeys up. It really was a beautiful building, thought Voorhess, who’d always had an admiration for original architecture, and it seemed a pity to put a hole in it. But he comforted himself in the knowledge that the physical damage would be cleared up soon enough, leaving it looking as good as new in no time. Those inside weren’t going to be so lucky, though. The three-kilo warhead on the end of the missile would wreak havoc in the enclosed, crowded space, and the beauty of the whole thing was that he couldn’t miss. Unlike the helicopter he’d shot down, this wasn’t a moving target, and as the only real heat source in the whole building, and with no other heat sources in the immediate vicinity, the missile would lock straight on to it.

  The observation deck was now in the launcher’s sights. He couldn’t see inside and had no idea who was in there, but this no longer concerned him. His target was the building. Right then, it was all he was interested in.

  For a long moment he paused for reflection, knowing that what he was about to do would be seen and talked about all over the world. A satisfied smile passed across his face as he pressed his finger down on the trigger mechanism and, with an angry shriek, the missile took flight.

  They’d just turned off Long Lane and on to a residential road, having just split from the two ARVs to maximize the ground they could cover in the hunt for the Shogun, when Tina heard a high-pitched whoosh – the sound rockets made when they were shot up into the air in firework displays – and saw a thin plume of smoke shoot across the top of buildings no more than two hundred yards to the south-west.

  She opened her mouth to say something, her eyes fixed to the missile as it seemed to sit perfectly still in the air for a half a heartbeat before suddenly accelerating upwards, leaving a long, perfectly straight vapour trail like an arrow pointed straight at the Shard.

  As Bolt did an emergency stop, Tina jumped out of the car and watched, dumbstruck, as the missile raced towards its target. It seemed to travel for a long time, but in reality it must have been barely seconds. And then it struck the observation deck with an audible bang, followed by a flash of bright light.

  They’d been too late.

  Fifty-three

  19.46

  WHEN THE MISSILE struck, Gina was standing against the wall at the edge of the scrum of nervous guests near the lift entrance.

  She saw something bright hurtling towards them from outside the window and then, before she had time to react or properly process the information, there was a loud explosion, followed by an immense, almost deafening sound of shattering glass.

  Instinctively, she threw herself to the floor. She heard a single piercing scream of panic coming from somewhere very close, which stopped as abruptly as it had begun. And then there was a deathly silence, broken only by the howling wind as it gusted in through the broken glass. Nothing moved. No one cried out.

  Slowly, unsteadily, Gina got to her feet. And witnessed a scene of total devastation. There was a huge hole in one of the floor-to-ceiling window panes at the southern end of the observation deck, about twenty yards from where she was standing. A blazing fire next to it ran almost the entire width of the room, its plumes of thick black smoke slowly advancing on her like an army of ghosts. All around Gina, guests staggered to their feet, their faces white with shock. Many had deep cuts. Some were covered in blood. One young woman still had a drink in her hand as she wandered round aimlessly, seemingly oblivious to the four-inch piece of glass sticking out of her stomach, which was staining her white cocktail dress a deep red.

  Gina turned away from her, too shocked even to feel nauseous, which was when she saw the five or six bodies lying close to the fire. One was in the uniform of the security guards; another had a TV camera next to him, a blackened hand resting on top of it. There was a man in a dinner suit lying on top of a woman, who may or may not have been the TV reporter Gina had seen only a couple of minutes earlier.

  Gina stifled a gasp. The man in the dinner suit looked like it might be Matt.

  Oh God, no. Please. Not him.

  Filled with a sudden sense of urgency, she made her way through the ranks of shocked, bloodied guests, ignoring the heat from the fire and the carnage all around her. She moved aside as a large, middle-aged man stumbled towards her, one cheek literally hanging off his face, blood gushing from the wound, his mouth gaping open. She didn’t even look at him. She was too busy staring through the thickening smoke at the body of the man in the dinner suit.

  It was difficult to tell but it looked like his hair was the same colour as Matt’s.

  The heat from the fire was becoming more intense now, and was burning her face. Behind her, people were beginning to talk again, several of them trying to take charge. Gina was only feet away now, and she could see that the woman lying beneath the man in the suit was the TV reporter. It looked like she was asleep except for the huge gash that had split open her skull, exposing the bone. The man in the suit had his face buried in her shoulder as if they were lock
ed in an embrace.

  Blinking against the smoke, Gina bent down next to him, feeling a terrible sense of dread. He wasn’t moving, and the back of his suit was shredded where the material had been torn open by hundreds of shards of glass. Gina had never seen a dead body before tonight, but even so, she could tell that he was dead. She heard herself begin to sob. To have been given a taste of hope and then, in the next instant, have it snatched away was too cruel a blow.

  And then she felt a firm hand on her arm, pulling her away. She turned round to see Matt standing there, his tie askew, his lip bleeding, and a look of sheer relief on his face.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

  Tina stood staring up at the flames and smoke angrily swirling out of the Shard’s windows as she listened to Bolt talking into the radio, his voice cracking with the shock of what they’d just witnessed. ‘Missile has just hit the Shard observation deck!’ he was shouting. ‘I repeat: missile has just hit the Shard observation deck! There’s a fire burning up there!’

  Tina thought she could just make out figures moving behind the huge wall of glass as the fire billowed through the observation deck, obscuring the view. The sight made her guts wrench. All their efforts to stop the Stinger had been in vain. Had it been fired at eight p.m., on the deadline the terrorists had given them, they might have prevented the attack, but by launching it a quarter of an hour early, the terrorists had shown a breathtaking callousness. Tina felt gutted and galvanized at the same time. Because they could still catch the perpetrator if they moved fast enough, although the smoke trail from the Stinger that would lead them to him was already dissipating above the rooftops around them.

  She jumped back in the car, slamming the door shut. ‘Drive! We need to catch the bastard!’