Seven Degress (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 2)

by Lewis Hastings

  He could see the train ahead. He started to run.

  Roberts had temporarily lost Cade in the crowd. He had pushed on with a few staff at his side and assumed that his partner was alongside him.

  About a hundred metres ahead he spotted the target, running, pushing his way through the throngs. He looked again, and he had vanished.

  Constantin had dumped his jacket, dropping it on the floor, allowing it disappear beneath the orderly pedestrian stampede. A few kicked it to one side and in seconds it was laying against a wall and out of sight.

  It gave him long enough to gain an advantage.

  Roberts turned and saw for the first time that he was alone among hundreds. But he had a goal now, and he wanted that bastard as much as the next man. The dreaded ‘Red Mist’ was enveloping him, altering his natural sense of self-protection, urging him onwards and into harm’s way.

  He stepped onto the downwards escalator and caught a glimpse of his quarry once again. Grabbing his radio he raised it to his mouth and pressed the talk bar.

  “DS Roberts to all staff Westminster, target sighted, heading towards…”

  But his words were lost. All his control room staff heard was a garbled message, encrypted and impossible to decipher.

  Falsely assuming his colleagues had heard his update he started to run. Constantin sensed Roberts gaining on him. He could hear his own breathing, the increasingly loud beats of his heart were fighting for attention and adding to his general sense of panic.

  Roberts was running faster now. Faster than his target. He offered another rapid update into his radio but it was another message sent but never received. Knowing that his colleagues were a step behind gave him the momentum to pursue the male.

  The train was in front of Constantin now. He just had to get on and pray the door closed in time.

  The red and white train, number 5540 was long past its prime but it carried out its duties valiantly, around and around on the circuitous journey that gave the service its name. It was a relatively shallow underground line, but he felt as if he was compressed beneath the earth, trapped in a tube and feeling ever more claustrophobic.

  The doors were open and as he stepped quickly into the body of the train; he turned right, allowing himself to make the most of the entire length of the series of carriages. The familiar voice message warned people of the need to take care as the doors were closing.

  Cade was gaining on Roberts who in turn was approaching the train at speed. As he reached the door it began to close, he threw himself into the gap and collided with a passenger who immediately did what most metropolitan commuters did and ignored him.

  He was aboard. With a hungry, goal-driven, heroin-addicted, gun-carrying murderer. And, as the train moved off he realised that he was quite spectacularly alone. A solitary police officer whose actions were likely to be either gallant and recognised or foolhardy and soon forgotten.

  Surely the public would come to his aid?

  As he looked briefly back onto the platform he saw Cade and two other uniformed officers.

  His lip reading skills were advanced enough to work out what Cade was saying, and it was far from pleasant.

  He stood for a while, looking down the train, trying to pick him out. There was no obvious sense of panic anywhere so his gun must have been disposed of or be hidden out of sight.

  Roberts felt that he stood out, a beacon that shouted ‘Look at me!’

  But for all his fears, he was, to the masses, just another passenger.

  He started to walk now, checking as discreetly as he could for his target whilst attempting, probably unsuccessfully, to look similar to any other miserable commuter whose only barrier to civility was a vacant stare or a deliberate air of indifference. His only weapon was a baton and a warrant card, that and his uncanny ability to think on his feet.

  Actually, what was he thinking?

  Cade had updated the control room and re-assigned staff to meet the train at the next stop, called Embankment. He turned around and made the slow journey back up through the station until he got stepped out into the light and onto the street.

  The black-haired sergeant appeared again.

  “We’ve searched everywhere boss. Not a trace. I think your boy is long gone. It’s been a long day. We are heading back to base unless you object?”

  “I do mate as it happens, sorry. My man is on that bloody train that just left platform two. I need you to get me to the next stop on the Circle Line. Sharpish.”

  “Roger.” He whistled to a member of his team. “Get the boss to Embankment underground and stay with him. We’ll be two seconds behind you.”

  Cade liked how his instructions were followed to the letter and without question. He got into the back of the patrol car as its driver and co-driver jumped in, adjusted their body armour and weapons and headed south before turning immediately left onto Victoria Embankment and accelerating for a hundred or so metres before coming to a halt.

  Regardless of the fact that their vehicle was highly visible and festooned with strobes and creating enough noise to wake the grandparents of the dead they were stuck fast.

  “Jesus when will this traffic ever improve boss?” Asked one of the authorised firearms officers.

  “Your guess is as good if not better than mine. How long?”

  “Ten minutes tops boss,” said the young AFO.

  He knew that on average the underground service would make twice the ground that they would, trying to fight through traffic and an endless sea of pedestrians.

  They got as far as the approach to the Hungerford Bridge when Cade realised they were destined to miss the damned thing. What was Roberts thinking?

  “Can we get some more units to head straight to the Embankment station? This bloody pain in the arse is running us ragged here and I’m getting just a little tired of him and his friends.”

  “Leave it with us governor.” The co-driver called up the control room and relayed the message.

  An anonymous and overworked voice replied. “Will do. We’ve got a unit nearby but they are en route to a reported stabbing. I will re-route them as soon as I can.”

  “Tell them we’ve got a matter of minutes. Try BTP. Tell them we need armed staff.”

  The latter suggestion had escaped his mind until now.

  British Transport Police were a standalone force, created to manage the vast transport networks across the British Isles, just like their Metropolitan counterparts they had staff in many departments including AFOs.

  On any other day Cade might have found himself admiring the bridge, the work of the industrious British engineer Brunel. Diagonally opposite was another feat of engineering that the great Briton would have found equally alluring, a giant Ferris wheel known by most as the London Eye. Cade looked at that instead and wished he was stood in one of its many ovoidal capsules, looking down from its four hundred feet vantage point at the ants below.

  And he was in just the mood to stamp on one.

  The Circle Line train made impressive progress, its carriages creating a draught and a growing back pressure as it approached the Embankment station.

  Roberts was stood by a doorway now. His heart was beating a little faster too. Where was he? He saw him board, so he had to be there somewhere.

  Artur Gheorghiu was ever-reliable. He resisted the light breeze that rushed from the tunnel, partially closed his eyes to avoid the dust and waited for the train to stop before stepping from the platform into the brightly lit third carriage.

  Roberts was hedging his bets. Half in and half out of the door he watched as best he could. He grappled for his phone, withdrew it from a pocket and checked the display. His battery was flat.

  ‘Bloody marvellous.’

  He could try the radio again, try to attract attention, but his aim was to surveil not to attract attention. The minute Constantin saw him one of two things could happen. He could run or he could fight. If he chose the latter, cornered and vulnerable it could easily be Roberts who wo
uld come off second best.

  It was Gheorghiu who had now become the hunter. ‘Where are you?’

  The doors were about to close. Roberts chose to stay on board. To ride his luck, at least to the next station where with fortune on his side Colonel Cade and the 1st Cavalry might arrive.

  Gheorghiu was scanning as only a first-class operator would. Although the carriages were packed he was soon able to distinguish who might not be and importantly who might be a cop. He had a sixth sense when it came to picking them out.

  And there he was. The man in the next carriage, trying his best not to draw attention to himself.

  The carriages were busy but not packed to capacity as they always were in the early and evening rush hours. Gheorghiu walked surreptitiously through the carriage and sat diagonally opposite his team mate.

  He nodded. It was a nod that spoke volumes. ‘Do not look at me more than you have to, do not speak to me and above all do not give anyone a clue that we are associated.’

  Constantin was wise enough to obey the rules. He was feeling awful. His head was in a vice-like grip, his eyes burned, he was nauseous beyond belief and on edge. But he obeyed the rules.

  His partner indicated right with his eyes. Again, it spoke many words in one simple almost undetectable action.

  ‘We have company my friend. Stay calm. We can do this you and I. Hate me tomorrow by all means, but for today we are brothers.’

  Constantin replied with a barely visible nod as around him other commuters ignored one another, staring everywhere but into the eyes of their fellow man.

  The train was picking up speed. Roberts discreetly turned down the volume on his radio and edged forwards. His target hadn’t spotted him. He had the advantage. A few minutes and they would be at the next stop.

  ‘Why wait?’

  He started to walk through the carriage, opened the door that joined the two units together and edged past an anonymous traveller who was trying to balance whilst reading his half-folded newspaper.

  Cade could wait no longer. He opened the back door of the BMW 5 series and started to run.

  “You’d better go with him. I’ll find somewhere to abandon this.”

  It looked closer from the back seat. After the first hundred metres, he was regretting it but kept running. The younger officer was catching him, despite the additional weight of his equipment and firearm.

  Visitors from far and wide, previously marvelling at the sights and sounds of the city were now either sheltering, shielding their loved ones or considering running for cover – in doing so misjudging the situation entirely, but they had watched enough news bulletins recently to know that the heartbeat of a major city could stop at any moment.

  Cade reached the Embankment underground station and entered, running towards the aging turnstiles. A few attentive staff members made to stop Cade who produced his warrant card and indicated his intention not to stop. The sight of the pursuing black-clad officer added an assurance that their fate was in good hands.

  The officer yelled “I’m with him, open the gate!”

  The pair were soon approaching the platform with the third officer a few minutes away. BTP staff were en route from nearby Temple underground and racing towards them. No one had considered stopping the train. It was that easy.

  With a hundred people on board, the doors closed again and the train moved away from the platform and began to pick up speed towards its next stop only a few minutes away.

  Cade and his temporary team saw the train depart.

  He ran towards a guard waving his ID.

  “Is there another train coming? I need to follow that one.” It sounded nonsensical. It probably was, but he was getting a little desperate.

  The sixty-year-old weathered face of the West Indian guard broke into a smile.

  “Man, dis is not Hollywood. Ya can’t go around chasing a train!” He laughed a normally infectious laugh before continuing.

  “What ya gotta do is wait for the next train and that will come in…” He looked at his watch, gifted to him for forty years of continual service, “…in about ten minutes.”

  “A man might be dead in ten minutes!”

  “Mister, we could all be dead in ten minutes, calm ya skin, let me think. I need to think. Now, there is a way…” He unfolded a much-loved timetable and mused at the options, oblivious to the fact that his customer had already walked away.

  Cade saw Roberts but chose not to communicate obviously with him, however his Anglo Saxon lips moved at the same time as a string of profanities were emitted. Pausing no longer, Cade had already turned on his heels and was running back up towards the patrol car.

  The AFOs shrugged their shoulders and joined him.

  Valentin Iliescu dialled an international number and waited for it to be answered.

  “Yes?”

  “It is me.”

  “So I hear. What news from London?”

  “He believes everything I tell him.”

  The voice laughed. “Good. So he trusts you. You have done well. My brother is there, but I am sure you know that, there is little you do not know. He tells me that a few of our people have caused him to get a little angry. I have told him to take the lead, after all I put him in control of the British operation as a test.”

  “Cade and his partner are being run into the ground by your team. You are always one step ahead. Very impressive – and the money must be equally so. As the American capitalists would say, ‘it must be rolling in’.”

  “Oh trust me, it is.”

  “And all your teams have to do is steal from a few locations, cause a diversion and move on. They are creating a reputation in the heart of the wealthiest financial centre in the world, and the authorities are almost allowing them to continue. But the risks are increasing each day, they will leave London soon, no?”

  “Yes, you are right, but in time, not just yet. I will tell you later. Mr Cade needs to think that we are heading into the lion’s den and you will support this, tell him that we are stepping up our operation and will be targeting shopping centres, supermarkets, petrol stations, train stations anywhere with an electronic point-of-sale device.”

  “You want me to tell him what you intend to do? Where you intend to target?”

  “Absolutely. Let him believe that we are falling into the lion’s mouth.”

  “When in reality?”

  “We are heading into his body and ripping out his throat.”

  Valentin took a moment before he continued the conversation.

  “There is already a lot happening here. The police are hunting for your team but focusing on Constantin. He is your weakest link now. They have deployed a lot of their people, they are armed and he is dangerous. This will shine the light upon your team. He will talk. It is a poor combination likely to cause you…heartache, would you agree?

  “I would.”

  The Jackdaw crowed as he briefed the man they called The Child of the Shadows, outlining his plan for a lucrative, targeted operation centring upon one of the city of London’s most iconic annual events.

  “Your plan is indeed impressive, very. I thought you were only interested in bank machines? Do you have a Plan B?”

  “Of course it is an impressive plan Copil. And yes, I have a Plan B, and that is even more audacious. When have I ever been anything but impressive?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer before continuing.

  “My dear brother will deal with the situation you have outlined. My days of placing myself in the way of harm are gone for now. I have a little girl to think about and one day I shall reunite with her and give her even finer things than she has now. Nevertheless, today and tomorrow and the next day I must empty the bank accounts of the foolish English and whilst they concentrate on that I can begin to turn off their life support. I have them right here.” His grip whitened his knuckles. “And for that I need my dear little brother’s help. He wants to be a great and important piece on the chessboard, he wants to be the King,
but I am the King. This is his chance. What do you think?”

  “You are indeed the King. Stefan tried so very hard, but sadly is only the Bishop, just the Bishop. Moving around the board in simple diagonal lines. He is a valuable piece at times, but limited in his strategy.”

  “And Cade?” He put emphasis on the name, almost spitting the word down the phone.

  “Cade is half Knight, half Rook, more flexible than you give him credit for. Be wary.”

  “He does not worry me. His other team members? What of them?”

  “Pawns. Nothing more.”

  The voice sighed, almost knowing what was coming.

  “And you, Valentin, tell me, what are you?”

  He paused, took a sip of warming Calvados and before finishing the call said, “I am the Queen of course, I move where I want, in any direction.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The tell-tale signal was all Roberts needed to observe. He had been in the job long enough to recognise an NVC – a non-verbal communication.

  The male in the next carriage had looked at him, for a split second, but his reaction was enough. It was the involuntary wipe, his left hand across his mouth, and it was all Roberts needed to observe. He’d been taught well many years before. His police tutor, Rob Wilsea, a career-constable and thief-catcher extraordinaire had handed down the sixth sense and field craft of twenty years and a young, fresh-faced Constable Jason Roberts had absorbed everything, chamois-like, desperate to ingest, to learn as fast as he possibly could. His thirst wasn’t insatiable, it was gluttonous. Where knowledge was concerned he could drink from a firehose.

  “When you see that bloody face wipe – pounce. You mark my words kid. He’s guilty, every ruddy time!” Wilsea’s words were now echoing around the stark metallic envelope of the train carriage.

  The male was staring down at the grubby, well-worn flooring. Overly conscious of his actions, desperately waiting for the next stop and a chance of escape.