He was now quiet.
“OK. Does anybody else wish to stop us?” The six passengers shook their heads and prayed for Harris to sit down, shut up and act like a terrified engineer on a diminutive bus that was previously minding its own business and heading to France without a care in the world.
Cade, Daniel, and their uniformed colleague could make out what was happening. The tunnel seemed to draw their focus straight onto and into the bus. No words were needed to support the actions. A gun, stuck in someone’s face, spoke a thousand words.
“Ken, get this relayed, will you? Where are we exactly and what are their options?” Cade was no longer tired. He looked down the tunnel, past the shuttle, looking for a way out. To the left of the vehicle and about fifty metres further down the tunnel, he could see a gap in the endless concrete structure. It must have been one of the many links that he had been told about in the briefing.
He knew back up was perhaps ten minutes away, staff had to get through the airlocks and then drive as fast as possible, but without firearms they were as useless as him. The nearest armed response team was twenty minutes away at best. He considered using the Hyundai as a weapon but realised he couldn’t get beyond the shuttle. If its current position was deliberate, it was clear that this was a planned decision.
On board, Constantin was engaging his team in a simple conversation, confident that none of the other passengers were going to risk becoming a headline on the evening news.
“OK. You all know what comes next? We go in sixty seconds.”
Chapter 30
Michael Blake sat in a comfortable office in the magnificent Foreign Office building in King Charles Street, London. It was far too late to be in the office, even for one so thoroughly committed to his work. It was often said to very close friends that he and his team had absolutely no life outside the splendidly constructed walls.
Why would they? Their work was everything.
Blake also said that there were far worse places to work, and as organisations went, the FCO was very much in the upper-echelons; there, on a pedestal; polished marble, no doubt.
The FCO had a job to do, and it had chosen people carefully over the years, casting a weather eye back to the regal days of the Commonwealth when much of the colour on a world map was pink, a simple indicator of the sheer might of the British government and its quest for global power. It had a reputation, then and now.
Blake had joined the FCO from university, where he studied politics and law. His first role, in the eighties, was seen as a test – if his resolve and the department’s trust in him grew, then all would be well. The role of Deputy High Commissioner in Pakistan had broken many before him, but it was a part he relished and had cut his professional teeth upon.
He flirted with Joint Intelligence Committees and advisory roles, moving from the United States of America to Eastern Europe, and he had risen through the ranks stratospherically. Having guided Prime Ministers and advised on foreign policy he found himself sat in a much-loved leather chair, his hands warming on a cast-iron radiator, staring out through a panelled window and onto a statue of Clive of India – the man who had famously established political and military control of enormous parts of south east Asia.
It was a familiar and regular late-night view for the Director General, Consular and Security, Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
He had majored on national security, consular services, cyber security, crisis, non-proliferation, and it that portfolio was not weighty enough, defence, intelligence and international security. Finally, and importantly for Blake, he maintained the portfolio on Russia, Central Asia and Eastern Europe.
What Blake didn’t know about his role, about the influence of Britain on the world stage and foreign policy priorities was, it was said, not worth knowing. His knowledge of Europe as a whole was outstanding. He spent weeks backwards and forwards to Brussels, where he held a post within the United Nations – just another diplomat in a sea of consular advisors and ambassadors.
It was whilst in Brussels he had met her. Whilst she flirted with the Africans he had caught her eye. He knew it. It was that sense of recognition that men and women have when the gaze is held just too long. Neurons, chemicals combine, clash, collide. A second too long becomes disturbing. A second less and the moment is lost – the chemical equation broken.
Patiently waiting for her to finish her obvious charm offensive with the heads of despot Central and West African states, he watched her walk up to the bar. Her evening gown was just above the knee, quite daring for such formal circles. The other women hated her, except one. The US Ambassador’s wife Julia had immediately taken a shine to her when she had met her a week or so beforehand and as she also had a personal friendship with Blake, she said it would be her honour to introduce them.
Blake could not believe his fortune. The woman, more of a stunning girl, was eating out of his hand. Able to hold her drink, she didn’t appear to need alcohol to reduce her inhibitions. She was the most attractive and best-dressed in the building, and all the other men couldn’t take their eyes off her. A white dress and white shoes, dangerously close to lascivious – however the way she wore it was flawless in both conception and reality. Her toned figure allowed the dress to speak a thousand words, most of them quietly uttered in the male minds that surrounded her, watching her, discreetly. Imagining.
An hour later, the same dress was lying on the floor of Blake’s bedroom. She had pulled back the dark blue floor to ceiling curtains and allowed them both to be exposed to the sparkling cityscape before taking control and riding him senseless, her perfectly shaped back facing him, arched her hips pulsing as she maintained control. She held him expertly inside her as she watched the city going about its business. It was easier than having to look into his eyes as he reached a shuddering and noisy climax.
They dressed, and she headed back to her own cheaper hotel where she showered for thirty minutes, ridding herself of him. Of the two, she wasn’t sure who the professional whore was. But she had got more than she had bargained for from Mr Michael Blake. He was different. The Africans allowed her to explore the avenue of false passports, visas and lines of credit. Blake allowed her a way out – all she needed to do was flatter his ego once or twice, make a breakable promise, maintain a discreet relationship until she could get to London and then cash in her favours.
Married with three children, he lived for the weekends when incongruously he spent most of his time in a beautiful home in commuter-belt Surrey working in a study that almost exactly mirrored his office.
Work aside, he was fit and healthy. He maintained a steady marathon time in the three-hour range and swam every morning, and often, when time allowed in Hyde Park where he was a member of the exclusive Serpentine Swimming Club.
Life was just glorious.
Or rather it has been until he had closed the Intelligence Report marked ‘Eyes Only’, sliding it to one side in the hope that it might tip over the edge of his desk and into the shredder.
Blake had lost something intensely valuable, from a place that had been chosen by a trusted aide for its apparent security and anonymity. Why didn’t he listen and just put the bloody thing in his safe, behind a card-accessed door in another secure part of the building? Jesus, the Queen’s bedside drawer would have been safer.
To exacerbate things, he’d also lost a member of staff that he had trusted and now couldn’t help adding two to itself and coming up with four.
And to piss on his delightful parade even further, everyone that was anyone wanted a few moments of Blake’s time, and they all appeared to be on top of the pecking order. Foreign Office, Security Service, Police and the government itself. He was being pulled, metaphorically, from limb to limb.
He gazed at the statue of Clive. He even asked a few questions of the old bugger, hoping in vain for an answer.
The first was desperate. “How the hell do I get it back?”
The second was more pleading in nature. “Where the hell is
it?”
And the third, inquisitive, was said during a long and restless sigh.
“And, having agreed to pay a king’s ransom to get him out of the country, do I really trust Mr Johnathan Hewett?”
The Chieftain was losing height, dropping lower by the second and following Departmental Road number 5 that tracked south west and allowed Anghel to gather her bearings. A street lamp here and there offered a partial map of the ground, but as experienced as she was, she began to have some doubts.
She had little with which to judge her position, with very few terrestrial markers and fewer celestial ones, she was at the very edge of her ability and skill. She relied on her instruments – and luck.
Landing a powerful, twin-engine aircraft during daylight hours in stable conditions relied on skill and often required knowledge of the location and weather patterns. She had the former in bucket loads, but the latter eluded her. From her seat the weather looked as fine as it could, in the dark, with no visible cloud.
The powerful Lycoming engines were a double-edged sword, handled with respect they were a joy to control, but misjudge their power on take-off or landing and the result would be far from envisioned.
She reduced speed further, waiting for the visual reference, the aim point that she needed to put the wheels down and start to decelerate, to brake, in itself a hazardous occupation on a fast, grassy strip – at night.
The words of her flight instructor were repeating in her head.
‘What you can’t see can still hurt you Maria…never forget that.’
“Where is my aim point?”
Stefanescu was focused now. “Is something wrong, my dear?”
“No. Everything is fine. And if you call me your dear once more, I will deliberately fly us into the ground. You said there would be a marker of some kind. I see nothing ahead.”
“Trust me…” He said the words clearly. “They will appear.”
In the tunnel, Constantin opened the shuttle doors and prepared to flee. He looked back – he didn’t need to produce a special stare. He was menacing all the time.
“If any of you try to follow us, or do anything heroic, I will personally shoot you. That goes for you too.” He looked directly at the driver, the only member of the captive group with the potential to harm them.
In truth, he was thinking about running them down. How dare they point a gun at his passengers?
The passengers in question said nothing, left their phones alone and kept their hands in plain view. Everyone, including Mike Harris, wanted to get home intact. He had a son in the local police, a fine young man called Charlie and he was desperate to share his story with him. He decided that as soon as he surfaced from his current logistical tomb he’d ring him, regardless of the fact he knew he was on duty somewhere not far away.
“OK. Go!” Constantin felt alive as he ran to the side of the shuttle, away from view.
Cade and his two colleagues were powerless, and their quarry knew it.
“Dragos, you hold them there, shoot at them if you have to. We will meet soon.” He placed a hand onto the younger man’s shoulder, gripped it quickly, tapped it twice in succession and then ran to the opening in the wall.
Cade was already moving.
“Jack. It’s not worth it. They are probably armed and need I remind you, we are not!”
“So what’s the option, John? I am not losing sight of that bastard. Now, unless you order me to stay, I’m moving. They can’t get far. You coming?”
It was one of those moments. Daniel decided he was too old for this nonsense. And yet he was so relatively young – having joined the police at a young age, it felt as if he had given his life to the job. In reality, that wasn’t far from the truth.
“You go. Ken and I will figure out what to do with the guy who’s now pointing a gun at us.”
It was enough to change Cade’s tactical options.
“Give me the keys, Ken.”
“But boss, I’ll get fired if the car gets damaged.”
“Put John’s name on the paperwork I’m sure he signed up for damage waiver insurance. Keys!”
Dragos Saban was a relatively young man, with a dream of a bright future. He had promised his uncle he would help him, but at what cost? If he started firing into the tunnel, he could hit one of them and that would change his life, and theirs, forever. He didn’t want to harm anyone, but he was a rabbit in a set of rather bright headlamps.
Looking behind him, he could see he was now alone – at least as far as his comrades were concerned. They were running down the link tunnel towards the main train tunnel to freedom. To freedom. Even the word sounded empowering. He was alone, underground, and although in control, he felt helpless.
He stood and raised his hand in the air. The aged firearm was visible and his finger was curled around its trigger.
Cade started the small car, selected reverse and accelerated. He was a little wayward, but the distance was reducing rapidly. What he was going to do when he reached Saban was as yet unplanned. A casual passer-by would have observed that it was courageous, if not a little foolhardy.
He looked back at his small team and as they became more distant, he pondered just what his boss would say when or if they were reunited. Technically, whilst trying to resolve one situation, he had created another – leaving them both completely exposed in what was basically a twenty mile long, well-lit shooting gallery.
He let out an expletive as he reminded himself it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission and carried on.
He wrenched the steering wheel violently to the right causing the front wheels to respond, in turn throwing the car into a rapid, noisy and decelerative turn within the already compact space. He corrected the car mid-turn, slamming the gearbox into first and accelerating now, into second, then third. The little engine was protesting as it hit its rev limit.
With the driver’s window down, the noise was ludicrous, but not so loud that he couldn’t hear the much louder report of a firearm.
Cade didn’t see the round, in fact he didn’t even flinch when the bullet struck the left side of the Hyundai’s windscreen, causing a small hole that was fringed by white fractured glass. A super-heated projectile punching through a snowflake.
The round continued through the car and into the bodywork. It was certainly a distraction as it worked out a way of dispersing its energy.
Daniel and Smith were at somewhat of a loss. Chase after Cade and get shot or stand still and get shot. Or, run the other way to France and end up causing a diplomatic row over their arrival with no travel documents.
Or get shot for desertion. In the back. Probably by Cade.
“Come on. Let’s go!” Daniel began to run towards the fight. It was what most police officers did, albeit the unwritten rule was subtly different: run to a fire, walk to a fight.
The second round left the chamber, a bright yellow flash and the thunderous sound of black powder detonating in such a restricted space caused all three pursuers to pause for a millisecond. It missed all three of them, ending up God only knew where.
Daniel made a mental note to ask him next time he was at his place.
Dragos’ comrades were now well into the complex and making good progress. If they stuck to the plot, they would be in the main tunnel soon and Constantin could carry out the second part of his escape and evasion plan. Simple, straightforward and potentially lethal. A marvellous, old-fashioned diversion.
Cade had never contemplated reducing his speed and was now moving through the tunnel at about fifty miles an hour. Hardly exhilarating, but in the current confines it felt like Monaco; exiting Portier and into the tunnel, foot flat to the floor. Actually, it felt much faster, as a go kart fixes itself low down against a track.
His vision was distorted, but he could make out the male who was now steadying the gun and aiming straight at the windscreen. Cade leaned slightly to his left and readied himself for the collision. At least this way he didn’t have to see his att
acker’s face.
The front driver’s side wing caught Dragos Saban’s mid-thigh and hurled him up and backwards, straight into the concrete wall. His back hit it with such force that it drove the air out of his lungs and appeared almost to deflate him. The sound was curious, intense and disgusting, not dissimilar to a carrier bag full of water being thrown to the floor.
It felt as if a huge weight had crushed his bones, dropping them from a great height, body meeting concrete.
He slipped down the curved wall section and ended half standing, half prone.
Cade recalled a hanging he had once attended when he was a young police constable. The male had ended his life on an unsympathetic and depressing day, using a dressing gown chord tied to a relentless curtain pole.
Cade had never been able to delete the image from his waking mind, he often recalled it and Dragos looked so similar, it put Cade back there, in a semi-darkened bedroom, in a semi-detached home, part of an anonymous housing estate, in a non-descript corner of Britain, on a miserable Tuesday at a little after eight in the morning.
He remembered every single part of the job.
He had found himself unable to leave, watching the deceased, wide-eyed, waiting for him to talk and praying he wouldn’t.
Alone, with a stone-cold, wretched and lifeless marionette.
He shook the vision away and swept the ground for the firearm, seeing it two car lengths away he knew he was as safe as he could be. He called out to the shuttle.
“Are you OK?”
There was a pause. The driver had had a reasonably bad day, and this latest event had just made it worse.
“Yes.” Another pause as he looked around and got several nods of approval. His accented English was clear enough as he stammered, “We are OK.”
Cade was out of the car and walking carefully towards the young male. He could hear him moaning and knew he would be badly injured.
Seven Degress (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 2) Page 51