Operation Certain Death

by Kim Hughes

  So, he was relieved when the pilot entered the waiting room at the London heliport and announced there was a delay because of adverse weather en route. They didn’t take off until close to five in the morning, destination unknown. To Riley, at least.

  The helicopter, though, was something of an upgrade from the Chinooks and Sea Kings he had been used to in Afghan. Plush was the word that came to mind. It was a long-range AgustaWestland, fitted out as if Five had borrowed it from the Sultan of Brunei. For all he knew, they had, because Paul Oakham shut him down when he asked who actually owned (and more importantly to his mind, serviced) the machine.

  The original AgustaWestland could seat fifteen in comfort. This had been re-configured to take ten in luxury. They weren’t so much seats as flying sofas. It was remarkably quiet, too. Noise-cancelling headphones were provided as ear defenders, but you didn’t actually need them. It seemed the corporate world valued its clients’ hearing more than the army did its soldiers.’

  There were six of them on board: Riley, Oakham and Kate Muraski plus three fully kitted and armed counter-terrorist officers. Police or MI5’s very own, he couldn’t tell from their outfits. Why was Oakham packing his own firepower on the chopper? No matter where they were going, there would be local CTUs available that could be ready and waiting. Unless he was keen not to involve an outside agency, one that was open to more scrutiny than Riley supposed Five was. Still, the Three Musketeers they had with them looked tasty enough and all had nodded to him, even though nobody had bothered with any introductions and Riley was in civvies. You just knew when the other person had some shared history.

  Immediately after a stomach-dropping take-off over a twinkling London, Kate Muraski had given him a tight smile and closed her eyes. A few seconds later she had clearly transitioned into a deep sleep, head propped on one of the pull-out headrests. Oakham was busy reading papers; the three heavies also seemed to be dozing, listening to their phones or both in the absence of any in-flight entertainment – there were screens, but they remained stubbornly blank – or reading.

  Riley wondered if they really trusted him. He was along for the ride because he could tell one end of a suicide vest from another. For the time being, MI5 had their very own bomb-disposal man. In the early hours Oakham had created documents claiming that Riley had been working for MI5 ‘in a covert nature’ for some time and that his erratic behaviour was all part of a masterplan. It requested he be seconded to Five ‘for the foreseeable future’.

  The army would not like this one bit. Spooks with their own ATO? But it just might keep the Military Police off Riley’s back and avoid one of their size eleven boots finding its way up his backside. Oakham would just have to say the words ‘national security’ and wave the letter he had requested from the Home Secretary confirming Riley’s recruitment to send them packing.

  He still felt as though he was on probation, though. But he would worry about that later. If they survived the helicopter ride. Riley closed his own eyes and tried to sleep. He didn’t have to try very hard.

  He woke with a jerk as the engine note of the helicopter changed and penetrated through to his idling brain. It took him a second to remember where he was. Muraski was still out, probably not as attuned to the risks of a plummeting chopper as he was. The black ops blokes were also apparently in the land of nod.

  ‘Refuelling,’ Oakham said when he noticed Riley was back in the cabin.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Edinburgh. It won’t take long. Captain was worried about the margin of error if we didn’t top up.’ It sounded like he was going to add ‘the pussy’ to the end of the sentence. Riley had no problem with getting more squirt in the tanks. He was all in favour of big margins of error, the bigger the better.

  ‘And then?’ Riley asked Oakham.

  ‘Go back to sleep.’

  But he couldn’t. While the fuel tanks were being replenished, he wondered if Muraski or Oakham had his phone. He would have liked to have texted Izzy and Ruby, to check they were hunkered down safe. ‘Do you have my mobile?’ he asked Oakham. ‘It was taken off me by your blokes.’

  ‘Not me,’ Oakham said. ‘Kate might. But let her sleep.’

  ‘Sure.’

  The co-pilot came back on board with black coffees for all, and Riley drank the snoozing Muraski’s too. He figured his poor grandfather, if he was still alive, would need him to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for what was to come.

  Whatever the fuck that might be.

  * * *

  Henry watched the leaves around him twitch and rise up as the wind roared into the forest. Above him birds took the wing in screeching alarm. He turned his head, looking beyond the gun in his hand and across to the slumped figure of Yousaf, the side of his head now a splodge of gore. The gale subsided, the leaves see-sawed back to earth and now he could hear the churn of the helicopter’s rotors as it turned away from the woods.

  ‘Are you all right, sweetie?’

  Ah, thought Henry, I have it. I am either dead or I am seriously wounded, lying on an operating table, pumped full of morphine. How else to explain the hallucination of Barbara that he could see from his prone position, striding up to the trees, dressed in, of all things, a mink coat.

  ‘Yes,’ he said softly, unsure whether he was addressing a phantom of his own making. ‘It’s bloody good to see you. How are you, my love?’

  ‘Oh, you know. Didn’t think my knees were up to a sprint. Hell to pay later. But I’m more worried about Binkie.’

  He looked behind her to where his old friend Ben Beaumont was struggling to cross the overgrown meadow. He had on a Crombie coat, brogues and was holding on to a trilby-style hat. ‘Hello, Binkie,’ he shouted.

  ‘Hello, Henry. Sorry, didn’t have time to change for the country.’

  This dream was just as insane as Yousaf had been. Very realistic, though. What did they call it? Lucid dreaming?

  ‘None of us did, darling,’ said Barbara as she reached Henry’s side, and held out her hand. ‘Up you come.’

  As Henry struggled to his feet and touched Barbara, he realised this wasn’t any sort of dream. It was still insane, though.

  ‘Barbara, what are you doing here? I don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  He threw his arms around her and pulled her close, his eyes stinging. ‘I thought I might never see you again.’

  She pushed him away slightly. ‘Don’t be silly, Henry. You don’t get rid of me that easily.’

  Then she looked down at Yousaf and stepped away from Henry’s embrace. ‘That was a lucky shot. Thought my Deadeye Dick days were over. Especially with this monster.’ She raised her hand. She was holding a rather large Desert Eagle pistol. ‘You remember I gave this to Ben for safe keeping? Never thought I’d use it again. But after those fools had blown my hearing out and put me in a damn hospital, I thought, I bet I know where he has taken my Henry. I’m going to go up there and shoot the bastard.’

  ‘And you did, sweetie.’

  She looked at the dead man. ‘Yes, I did, didn’t I?’ She gave a little giggle.

  ‘Well, thank you. I hate to sound… ungrateful. But it was me who had the gun on him, not the other way round.’

  ‘Oh, I know that. But I don’t think you would have pulled the trigger, would you, sweetie? Not quite your style. So, whatever was going on, I thought it better to take one player off the board. Did I do wrong?’

  He hesitated. ‘No, my love. Perfect timing.’

  She beamed at him.

  ‘Long time since I pulled an all-nighter,’ gasped Beaumont as he finally reached them.

  ‘Ah, poor Binkie. I not only made him open his gun safe, I borrowed one of Angela’s coats and then I made him drive here through the night.’

  ‘Devil to find,’ said Beaumont with a shake of his jowls.

  ‘I think that was the idea,’ said Barbara. ‘Who are those people?’ She pointed at the helicopter that had landed on the far side of the field,
well clear of any trees.

  ‘I don’t really know,’ said Henry.

  ‘Give Ben the gun, sweetie. Just in case.’

  Henry did as she suggested and the three of them stepped out of the shadows of the wood and waited as six people emerged from the helicopter, ducked beneath the slowly turning rotors, and headed straight for them.

  ‘I hope one of them has a scalpel about their person,’ said Henry softly. ‘Or a pipe.’

  * * *

  ‘On his liver?’

  ‘Yes, young lady,’ Henry said patiently. ‘He told me the location of the bomb was written on his liver.’

  ‘Get the fuck out of here,’ Muraski said.

  ‘And you believed him?’ Oakham asked.

  They were standing on the edge of the copse. Yousaf Ali was still on the floor, attracting the interest of the more opportunistic flies and insects of the Highlands. The three armed officers had been sent off to ‘secure the grounds’ and ‘guard the helicopter’. In truth, it was Oakham’s way of getting rid of them. Secrets and lies, not blood, were about to be spilled and it was better if they were elsewhere.

  While Henry was talking to Oakham, Riley was giving his grandmother a hug and thanking Ben Beaumont, who, along with his wife Angela, had been a frequent visitor to Dunston Hall when Riley was a teenager.

  ‘There was a case,’ said Muraski, trawling deep into her memory. ‘A doctor used… an argon beam I think it was. They are usually used to seal the bleeding after a liver transplant. He used it to sign his initials.’

  ‘What was he charged with?’ asked Oakham. ‘Unlawful autographing?’

  ‘Unlawful force to a patient whilst anaesthetised,’ she corrected. ‘He was struck off, I believe.’

  ‘Well this chap is hardly anaesthetised,’ said Henry. ‘Shouldn’t we just open him up?’

  Oakham shook his head. ‘We do this properly. We need someone who knows his way around the insides of a corpse. First, though, we need a coroner.’

  ‘There are no coroners in Scotland,’ said Henry. ‘We had one of the staff here die. Accident. Had to contact the Procurator Fiscal, who in turn authorises a post-mortem. And informs the police.’

  Oakham took out his phone. No signal. ‘Damn. It sounds like it might be a long-winded process.’

  ‘Did he say where the bomb was?’ asked Riley, who had left his grandmother and moved over to stand next to Muraski.

  ‘London,’ replied Henry. ‘It’s the postcode that is on his liver.’

  Oakham gave a snort of disbelief. ‘And was he responsible for Nottingham?’

  ‘He says not,’ said Henry.

  ‘I told you,’ said Riley. ‘There is another bomber. This one’ – he indicated Yousaf – ‘was a spent force. Apart from, if he is to be believed, one last bomb in London.’

  ‘You don’t believe him?’ Oakham asked, looking for an ally.

  ‘Only one way to find out. Cut him open.’

  ‘We can drive down the road and get a signal,’ said Muraski. ‘There’s at least two cars here now we have the one Barbara came in. We use the chopper to fly the body of Yousaf to, I don’t know, Fort William. It must deal with a lot of climbing accidents and fatalities, so I bet it’s set up for post-mortems. But in the meantime, we send Henry here back to London for a full debrief.’

  Oakham nodded. ‘Agreed.’

  ‘And Riley as well,’ added Muraski.

  ‘Why?’ asked Oakham.

  ‘Because,’ explained Riley, ‘if the bomb is in London, that’s where I need to be.’

  ‘Exactly,’ agreed Muraski.

  Maybe they do trust you after all, pal.

  TUESDAY

  FORTY

  When Kate Muraski had finally located and given Riley his phone back it was full of messages from a concerned Scooby, giving him updates on Izzy and Ruby. His daughter, too, had sent a sit rep, assuring him that they were safe and in good hands and wondering if she should be a bodyguard when she grew up. By then it had gone midnight – he and his grandparents had flown back on a commercial flight from Inverness (Ben Beaumont had opted to drive his Jaguar back south, with, he insisted, at least one nice comfortable stopover this time). Riley had then accompanied his grandparents, with an MI5 driver/bodyguard, to Dunston Hall and made sure they felt safe and secure. The officer from Five had turned a blind eye to Barbara’s trip to the cellar to fetch a pistol – she had not been foolish enough to try to get a Desert Eagle on a plane, so Binkie had been entrusted with it for the return trip. The Bersa Thunder she had taken from the gunsafe would be under her pillow that night. The bodyguard, despite his protests, was told that his services would not be required.

  After returning to London, Riley was put up by the duty manager of Thames House at a hotel on Bankside, near the Tate Modern – which also managed to launder his clothes overnight – and left a message for Scooby to meet him outside the gallery at mid-morning to plan what should happen next for Izzy and Ruby for the foreseeable future. He then slept like he had been coshed until almost nine o’clock.

  Scooby was on time and together they rode up the escalator and then took the stairs to the café on the sixth floor of the Natalie Bell building. It was pretty empty, so they sat on adjacent stools overlooking the river and the Millennium Bridge across to St Paul’s. It was quite a stirring sight, that dome, Riley thought. He didn’t go in for cheap patriotism, but a sight like that made you think London, despite its vicissitudes and its glaring inequalities, was a city worth protecting.

  After they had ordered coffees, Riley gave Scooby a brief run-down of the previous day. In fact, it wasn’t so much brief as skeletal. He didn’t mention his grandparents or Inverstone Lodge. He did mention the security services, but only in that they had asked for his help dealing with a rogue bomber.

  Scooby hardly touched his coffee as he listened. ‘On his liver?’

  Riley was going to have to get used to disbelief whenever he told the story. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It was a code. En, oh, bee. Then on another lobe of the liver, oh, em, bee.’

  ‘Where was it? The device?’

  ‘Nowhere. It spells No Bomb, with unfortunate spacing after the third letter, not the second.’ It had, apparently, caused some consternation until Oakham had realised what the message was trying to spell out.

  ‘Shit. So…’

  ‘He just wanted to die in some sort of battle. He needed someone to kill him, an enemy, so he could pass Go and collect his virgins.’

  ‘At least he didn’t go down the suicide-vest route.’

  ‘There’s that,’ admitted Riley. ‘Maybe that’s old hat in Jihadist circles. So, what about Izzy and Ruby?’

  Now Scooby took a sip of his coffee and grimaced. It had gone cold. He went to stand. ‘I’ll just get…’

  Riley gripped his wrist. ‘I haven’t got much time.’ Kate Muraski was at a funeral, Oakham had told him to ‘stand down but stand by’. He couldn’t shake the feeling that disaster was imminent. The atmospherics felt way off. Yousaf may have gone to Paradise, but if he really wasn’t responsible for the other devices, a bomber was still active. A bomber who had made one attempt on Riley’s life already. Riley gave him the essential details of the trip to Scotland and its implications.

  Scooby sat back down. ‘Thuckerin’ thunder—’ he began.

  ‘No voices,’ snapped Riley.

  ‘Just the facts, ma’am?’

  ‘That’ll do.’

  ‘You know Joe Friday never said that in the original series—’

  ‘Scooby, knock it off, eh?’

  His old friend took a breath. ‘Women might like the mean and moody act, Dom. It’s not great as a pal.’

  ‘I’m suffering from PIT.’

  ‘PIT?’

  ‘Post Impressions Tension.’

  ‘That’s more like it,’ said Scooby with a grin. ‘I’ve put them up in a place called the Red House in Padstow. Much more secure than Izzy’s flat. It stands on a rise, ov
erlooking the Camel Estuary. You can see who is coming, who is going. Lisa and Jackie are still on the case.’

  ‘Sounds good. Let me know if you need an interim payment.’

  ‘We’ll worry about that when it’s all over. There’s something else.’

  ‘Hold that thought. I’m going to call Ruby. I’ll get right back to you.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll get more coffee.’

  Riley stood and walked way, to gain some privacy. Ruby answered on the first ring. There was disappointment in her voice. ‘Dad?’

  ‘You could sound more enthusiastic,’ he chided gently.

  ‘Sorry, Dad. I’m expecting Becky to call me back.’

  ‘Did you check it was okay to call people? With Lisa and Jackie.’

  ‘With Lisa. Jackie is a bit scary. Lisa’s cool. She said to keep it short and not say where we are.’ There was excitement in there at the subterfuge.

  ‘Mum okay?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘Kind of how?’

  ‘We had a sort of argument. When I said I wanted to be a bodyguard like Lisa. She said it was enough you had a…’

  ‘A what?’

  The answer came out in a rush. ‘A fuckin’ stupid job. That’s what she said.’

  ‘I’m sure. Well, maybe she’s right. Like the army, bodyguarding is mainly waiting around. Ninety-five per cent inaction, five per cent adrenaline.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘No locations, remember?’ he said with mock severity.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Sorry.’

  ‘I’m teasing. London. I’ll be down to see you as soon as I can.’

  ‘Is the man who put the bomb under the car still out there?’