Operation Certain Death

by Kim Hughes

  ‘No. And I’m concerned about Mrs Clifford-Brown’s absence, too.’ Kate was pretty sure Barbara could take care of herself in most situations. But she was also certain that she wouldn’t willingly let her husband out of her sight. ‘My guess is that they’re pretty inseparable.’

  ‘Now look at this.’

  Onscreen a car pulled into the driveway. A 7-series BMW. A woman – slight, blonde, dressed in black – got out and did a 360 before she approached the door of Dunston Hall.

  ‘Pro?’ Muraski asked.

  ‘Well, she’s on her toes about something. Look, she gets no answer. Alarm bells ring in her head. She runs back to the car. It leaves in a hurry.’

  ‘You checked the car plates?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Fu. ‘Registered to a Lisa Baxter. She’s on The Circuit.’

  ‘Bodyguard?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. What do you make of that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Can we see who else was in the car?’

  ‘Windows too heavily tinted.’

  ‘Okay, thanks. I have a feeling none of this is going to make any sense till we find Dominic Riley.’

  ‘That rings a bell.’

  ‘There’s a TAP on him.’

  ‘Who is he again?’

  ‘Well, he’s many things. One of them is the Clifford-Browns’ grandson.’

  THIRTY-TWO

  The smell told the bomb-maker that the boy had soiled himself again. The second time in three hours. He put down the drawing he had been studying and looked over. His son was watching television again, apparently unaware of what had transpired. He would have to buy the boy some diapers or whatever they were called in this country.

  He walked over, turned the TV off – it was another programme about the Islamic Centre bombing – and pulled the boy to his feet. Together they made the ponderous journey to the bathroom. He had insisted they get him a house with a downstairs bath or shower and a room where the boy could sleep on the ground floor. He could manage stairs, but it was easier if everything was on one level. The house they had selected was at the end of a row of terraces, detached from the main run, apparently constructed by the builder of the surrounding streets for his own family. So it came with a large garden, hedges, trees, a driveway and, most importantly, a great sense of privacy.

  Once in the bathroom, he turned on the shower and stripped off his son’s clothes, setting the clean sweatshirt aside but putting the underwear and trousers into a basket. Luckily, he stayed compliant. Sometimes his son railed against being manhandled and when he did, he showed a frightening strength. The bomb-maker thought the damaged young man’s muscles should have atrophied by now, but there was still steel in those sinews. He had hurt his father once or twice, bruised his face. He hadn’t punished him. It wasn’t his son’s fault that he was like this. It was the British Army’s.

  He checked the temperature of the water from the shower head, rolled up his sleeves and helped the lad in. He sponged him down with a flannel, cleaning down his legs as well as his buttocks, and handed him a towel. He could manage to dry himself, mostly.

  While he did that, he went to the laundry room – another luxury the house had – and put on the washing machine. Perhaps he should buy some more clothes, even though they were approaching the end of days. He had seen some shops close to a B&Q that sold cheap, anonymous jeans, tracksuit bottoms, sweatshirts and hoodies. That was all the boy needed. And diapers, he reminded himself.

  He returned, finished drying off the boy and re-dressed him in clean clothes. He guided him back to the living room and sat him on the sofa once more, switching the TV back on. The news was reporting that there were marches in several cities against the far right who had dared target innocent, peace-loving Muslims. He wondered how the marchers would feel if they knew that one of their own had created the bomb and that, rather than white extremists, a foreign power was ultimately behind the atrocity.

  And how did he feel about being responsible for the death of Muslims? Well, if they were righteous, they would be in Paradise. If not, and they were suffering the first tortures of eternal pain, they only had themselves to blame. He used the same logic when he was making the bombs that would destroy marketplaces and police stations back home. Besides, his associates’ logic for targeting the Islamic Centre had been irrefutable: it would cause chaos and social unrest in the UK. He had no problem with that, just as long as, at some point, he got his own revenge. It was a symbiotic relationship with his partners: they both needed each other. And they would both achieve what they wanted by the time the bombing campaign was over.

  The bomb-maker returned to his work, laid out on the dining table, but kept glancing at what was left of his son. He was getting worse, no doubt about it. He had begun wetting the bed. Soon, he would need full-time medical care, because his son’s needs would become a two-person job. He looked down at the schematic he had sketched and put a pencil line through it. Then he picked up the handset of the landline and dialled the number he had memorised. The man who called himself Rick answered, although the bomb-maker assumed that was not his real name.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I have the cylinders,’ the bomb-maker said. ‘You have the list of other components?’

  ‘Yes. Nothing that will cause us any problems.’

  ‘Good. Bring them in the van. Change of plan. I will build what you want here, inside the van.’

  Now he sounded surprised. ‘Not in the workshop?’

  ‘No. I want to stay close to my son. You can prefabricate the panels for me.’ It wasn’t a question. The man was not without technical abilities.

  ‘I can. Enough for both units. You are sure about this?’

  ‘I am. It won’t affect delivery. We are still on target.’ There was more to his plan than simply constructing devices. He had a particular scenario for this end game in mind. However, that was none of his associate’s business. He looked at the wall clock. He needed a post office, but it was Sunday. Perhaps he could find a shipping agent – DHL, UPS – to deliver his parcel overnight. ‘Do as I ask and the Vipers will be ready to deploy.’

  It was obviously the first time the man had heard the term. The bomb-maker’s instruction had been simply to build a ‘spectacular’. This was what he had come up with. ‘What’s a Viper?’

  The bomb-maker chuckled. ‘The most fiendish IED ever devised. And impossible to defuse. Even for an ATO like Staff Sergeant Dominic Riley.’

  * * *

  It was just as he was leaving the Irishman that Riley snapped. Whatever toxic waste had been building up inside him burst out into his bloodstream and a roaring filled his head that drowned out all rational thoughts. If O’Donnell hadn’t said anything, he would have left him and his dog alone. But he had to have the last word.

  ‘It’s just a shame we didn’t get any of you at the farm. I was proud of that coffin-bomb.’ The combination of the smug tone and the smirk on his face made Riley flip. He grabbed O’Donnell by the collar of his suit and pulled his arm back, ready to drive his fist into the old man’s face.

  Not now, eh, pal?

  Riley ignored it. Nick was hardly qualified to be the voice of reason here.

  Give the old cunt a break, eh? It was a long time ago.

  Almost against his will, Riley lowered his arm a little.

  Dom! How you going to protect your family when you’re in the dock for GBH?

  He dropped his clenched fist away altogether. He shook the dog off his leg, although the insistent yapping continued. The swirling in his head diminished, as if all his anger was flushing down a neural plughole. O’Donnell pushed himself away from the wall and grabbed the rear of the armchair for support. ‘I was right. You are… a fecking… nut job,’ he croaked.

  Talk to his shrink, said Nick. She knows. PT—

  ‘Shut up,’ Riley growled. He was growing tired of his late pal. Didn’t the dead ever sleep?

  Riley raised a
finger and stabbed it at O’Donnell. The man flinched. Good. Job done. Even if it wasn’t premeditated, he had put the Fear into him. ‘You just remember that before you go talking to any of your old pals, eh?’

  He reached down and gave the dog’s neck hair a quick ruffle. ‘I’m sorry you got caught up in all this.’

  As he left, he heard the sound of the old man’s courage returning. ‘Just piss off. I see youse again, I’ll kill you.’

  He was still sitting outside O’Donnell’s, legs astride the Yamaha, pondering his next move, when the call from Scooby came in.

  ‘We have a situation, mate.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lisa and Jackie took Izzy and Ruby to your grandparents. There was no answer and they got out of there, just in case. SOP.’ Standard Operating Procedure.

  ‘Shit, I forgot to phone Barbara and Henry to warn them they were coming. Idiot. What did they do?’

  ‘They’re fine. They’ve taken them off for lunch. Izzy is kicking up a storm, apparently. Wants your number so she can give you an ear bashing.’

  ‘Yeah, hold off on that for now, will you. I know where there is a key to Dunston. I’m on my way now. I’ll call you.’

  Riley tried the Dunston Hall main line but there was no reply. Nor from either of his grandparents’ mobiles, which he knew, given the atrocious reception in the area, only worked if they were away from the hall.

  ‘Please leave a message for Henry Clifford-Brown,’ said the voice in his ear. At least there was an answer service on the cellphone.

  ‘Grandad, it’s Dom,’ he said. ‘Can one of you get back to me? I need your help. Nothing serious.’ He started the Yamaha and set off. Nothing serious? Who was he trying to kid?

  THIRTY-THREE

  On the final stretch of the switchbacked road to Dunston Hall, Riley reviewed what he had learned from the Irishman, the methods he had used to gain that knowledge. He felt a sharp pang of guilt thinking about Astral. That poor dog. What sort of crackpot wires up a dog? Of course, he wouldn’t have eviscerated it. The bomb wasn’t set up to explode. Had he touched the wires, the Airedale would have received a mild electric shock, enough to make her yelp and scare the bejesus out of George O’Donnell.

  Riley hadn’t known there would be a dog, it was just a spur-of-the-moment idea. The vest was originally intended for George. And in the original scheme of things it would have been a fully operational one. At least he wouldn’t be on PETA’s blacklist for that. But Astral worked. Riley was fairly sure O’Donnell would have held out under any threats to harm his person. Menace the dog, though, and he bleated like a flock of sheep.

  Sometimes he worried he had inherited something from his mother that wasn’t altogether rational.

  I think you should stick to blowing up inanimate objects.

  You could be right there, Nick.

  His old pal kept quiet as he hammered the Yamaha down the motorway to Dunston Hall. By the time he finally pulled up in front of the façade of his grandparents’ wing of the house, the over-worked engine was making an odd whining noise of protest. As Riley dismounted, he felt a twinge in his back and an ache in his kidneys. He also couldn’t feel his arse cheeks. The bone-shaking bike wasn’t designed for such urgent dashes. Neither was he. He took a few seconds to stretch, took off his helmet and stowed it in the top box, then walked over the gravel to the front door. It took a second to realise something was missing. The BMW. Had they just gone out?

  Riley reached the front door and lifted the heavy lion’s head knocker and let it drop. He listened to the noise boom around the interior of the hall. But that was all. No sound of footsteps. Yet he knew it was pretty unusual for both of them to be out these days. He waited a couple of minutes – they were not the speediest pair – then knocked again. The same response. Zilch.

  Riley went to the third plant pot from the left, the one with the bay tree, and sunk his fingers deep into the soil. He came out with a plastic bag containing two keys, one for the Yale, the other for a Chubb mortice lock. He wasn’t sure that leaving buried keys was a particularly clever move for a pair of spooks but they always shrugged his concerns off, saying Dunston was ‘neutral territory’ in their war. Not for burglars, he used to say. Maybe the hidden package reminded them of the dead-letter drops in Moscow in their youth. When he tried the Chubb, the latter hadn’t been thrown. Which was odd, as his grandparents always double-locked.

  He slotted the key into the Yale, turned it and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. ‘Grandad? Grandma?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Henry? Barbara?’

  Riley shrugged his backpack onto the polished floor and listened to the house but the only noise it gave back to him was the grave tick of a grandfather clock. He looked at his phone. No signal. As usual. He did a quick recce of the ground floor, pausing to look out over the lawn and lake to the woods where he had spent what seemed like the majority of his childhood, whenever his mother Rachel was ‘indisposed’.

  He was so consumed with worries about his grandparents that he almost missed it. In the conservatory, the broken pane of glass that had been repaired. The Sellotape used to fix the shards in place looked new. There were specks of glass glinting on the floor. The window had been broken recently and the repair didn’t look like one that Henry would approve of. Riley opened the door and stepped onto the patio, examining the ground near the glass. There was something that might be a footprint, but nothing clear and definitive.

  With renewed vigilance he went in and swept each room for clues, but they were unyielding. Out in the hallway he stood beneath the stairs and stared at the door that, he knew, led down to the cellar. The forbidden catacomb, his mum used to say. Or the Gateway to Hell. He never knew what was down there, apart from the shotguns his grandad stored in a locked cabinet. Henry used to make up scary tales of what was beyond that door. He realised later in life they were to stop him being curious. Even now, when he knew a little about his grandparents’ extraordinary story and the sort of work they did, he had still never been down there. But he knew where the key was kept.

  Except it wasn’t where it should be. He felt under the console table, where it usually rested, held secure by a magnetic pad. The pad was still there, but not the key. His sense of unease increased and he tried not to give in to a full-blown panic attack. But something wasn’t right.

  Riley went back to the door, examined the lock. He could probably kick it in, but old doors like that never yielded the way they did in the movies. Feet and knees often gave out first. He decided to come back to it.

  A search of upstairs confirmed that something was amiss. The bed in the master bedroom was unmade – not like his grandmother at all – and there were clothes on the floor. Pyjamas and a nightgown. One of the two wardrobes was open and several hangers on the left were unoccupied. Again, Grandma would not have liked the lack of symmetry.

  He forced himself to breathe easy, not to jump to conclusions. Perhaps there had been a medical emergency and they had driven to hospital. At their age such events were increasingly likely. A fall, a stroke, a heart attack.

  Riley quickly gave the other bedrooms a once-over, found nothing, and returned downstairs. He examined the entrance to the cellar carefully. The lock was heftier than he had first thought. The door didn’t have so much as a rattle in it. The key actually threw what felt like steel bolts. You really would break a leg trying to kick it down. He doubted you could even shoot it out, even if he had a gun. It was possible the entire door was a steel-plate sandwich, so it was no use trying to batter it down with an axe or some such.

  It was while examining the frame that he found the splodge of blood on the woodwork. He wiped at it with a finger. It was recent enough to smear. Someone in the house had been injured. Okay. Time to take that fucking door out.

  From his backpack Riley fetched a length of the det cord he had taken from the barracks’ stores and ran it down the door jamb where the lock mated with the frame. He then taped an electric
detonator to the end of the det cord and ran a length of twin-flex firing cable to a safe distance around the corner before completing the circuit.

  The sharp crack bounced around the hall and the familiar stench of a detonation hit him. When he walked back around, the door was open. He looked at the shattered lock. It had been a substantial piece of kit. It was the wood around it that had mostly given way. He peered into the cellar. The stair lights were on. Someone was at home.

  There were heavy stone steps down to the space below, but there was a landing after he had taken a dozen of them and the kind of padded door you found in recording studios blocked his way. Above it was a bare red light bulb, unlit, clearly designed to warn when entry would be inadvisable. Luckily, this door was unlocked and it opened with the tiny gasp of rubber seals parting.

  He stepped gingerly down the stairs. ‘Grandma?’

  At any other time, he would have marvelled at the cages of wine and the various electronic equipment that had been installed – none of which was on – but he was transfixed by the sight of his grandmother.

  She was slumped in the chair under a bare bulb that made her features look yellow and waxy. Her head, disfigured by a gash and bruise at her temple, was on her shoulder, her eyes were closed, and a thin trickle of red had spilled from the corner of her mouth.

  ‘Oh, no, no, no. Fuck, no.’

  A wave of pain hit him. Riley’s cry of anguish battered the brick walls of the cellar as he fell to his knees next to her, put his head on her lap and sobbed.

  * * *

  The bomb-maker pushed up the roller shutter on the rear of the Transit ‘Luton’ van and peered inside. Tied to the side walls, covered in felt blankets, were the main panels of the bombs he would create. Six crates contained the rest of the components. He could start assembling now. He had given the lad a sedative so he would sleep for a few hours. He would check him every half-hour or so, just to be sure. Sometimes, if he slept and then woke during the day, the boy would scream at the top of his lungs. The last thing he needed at this crucial juncture was a neighbour calling the authorities, saying they thought someone was being abused. Police might be called. Such things happened in this country.