by Rachel Lynch
Peter answered. ‘Roy didn’t think it wise,’ he said.
‘A direct link to two attendees?’ she asked again, puzzled.
‘It’s much more likely that Fawaz will take out as many high-profile names as possible, otherwise, why choose the summit?’ Roy asked.
It was clear to Helen that they’d discussed this without her.
She left, putting a call through to the ambassador’s driving team, as she did so. Hunch, jitters, vacillation or scepticism: it didn’t matter the rationale behind it, but she put in a request for a driver familiar with J-turning an automatic vehicle. Evasive driving was something that all ambassadorial drivers were skilled in, but complacency and lack of practice was always a possibility. She spoke to the ambassador’s driver in person. He assured her that he was fully competent with the manoeuvre, which, executed perfectly, thrust a vehicle one hundred and eighty degrees in the opposite direction with the engine still running.
She was connected to Peter and Roy via radio and she could feel their apprehension. She listened as they confirmed checks on all the finer points of their last opportunity to check security. Voices checked in from all over the estate. One more inspection of the guest list would be done, including all entourages. It was a mammoth task, but they were used to it. Peter’s department could do this sort of thing with their eyes closed. She wondered what sort of action Roy White had seen to reach such a senior position of trust at a relatively young age, and how he’d got the scar on his face.
She was taken by Polaris Ranger to the main house, and a short walk across the gravel brought her to a rear entrance. The kitchen was two storeys below. She met with the security team overseeing the catering and sat on the edge of a table, in an adjacent room to the main kitchen, and listened to their brief. They showed her photographs of every vehicle registered as arriving and leaving, which one had delivered what, along with their inventories and the vetting updates on the staff.
She took her time and checked each name against the security information. It took her two hours to plough through, by which time her stomach was telling her to eat, but she didn’t know if she could face a morsel.
‘This team here – the sous chefs accompanying the head chef,’ she said.
A security agent checked what she was looking at. ‘Yes, Ma’am,’ he said.
‘They’ve been added last week. Why weren’t they cleared before that?’ she asked.
‘I’ll find out, ma’am,’ he said, and left the room.
She heard a final update from Peter across the radio.
All they could do now was wait.
Chapter 55
Helen visited the kitchens and accepted a sandwich from a chef. The smells coming out of the various stations were incredible and all tension at the thought of eating dissipated. She quizzed the young helpers about their jobs and residential statuses, without attracting any animosity at her prying. She made it sound the most natural thing in the world. She’d memorised the files of most of them and checked minor details with them, ticking them off in her head. She peered in cupboards and looked under tablecloths. A few ancillary helpers looked at her oddly, but most were gracious and patient with her questions.
She moved upstairs to the main hall, where she could see Roy White in place behind the Hall of Mirrors, coordinating the security measures covering the whole estate, which is where he’d remain. The perimeter had been closed and all VIPs were in place inside the great hall, which was most famous for the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Where Clemenceau strutted and demanded Germany’s blood, and where hundreds of presidents and prime ministers had graced the ornate stateroom since. Actually, it was garish and pretentious, and the light reflecting off the mirrors from the huge windows overlooking the Grand Canal hurt Helen’s head. She’d come to the kitchen to snoop around and have a break. She was no good to the prime minister and the ambassador if she was lacking in energy. Her nerves were holding and the journey times and routes, chosen by Roy and communicated to the gendarmes via the Police Nationale, had been a huge success. She heard the guffaws of politicians and statesmen and women vibrate through the long serving halls of the palace, together with regular updates from Peter and Roy about sniper positions and perimeter policing. Shortly, the guests would be asked to be seated for dinner. The sun still shone brightly and the west-facing Hall of Mirrors welcomed the brilliant rays through the huge glass windows. Crystal reflected across the room as Helen watched from the door as the arrival of the US president was announced. She eyed the personal security of each head of state, and watched as they spoke in earpieces, communicating with each other via updates from Special Agent White. It was a familiar sight and one that Helen felt comfortable with. The suits, fancy dresses and glittering accessories mingled into a blur, and she drowned them out. Sir Conrad entered the room, and she watched him as he was submerged in flattery and pomp. The room was full and noisy now.
She fiddled with her earpiece and made her way back to Roy. She was happy with the personal bodyguards standing behind the VIPs at all times, packing enough metal to put a dent in the Titanic. The photo opportunities outside in front of the magnificent building had run smoothly and the world’s media was happy. The best-case scenario was that they had it all wrong, and could all go back to their hotels after dinner was over.
Canapés circulated and waiters worked tirelessly to make sure no one was empty-handed. Roy gave her the thumbs-up, and she went back into the hall. She saw that the prime minister was never more than a few feet away from his guard, and the same was true for the ambassador. Sir Conrad had greeted her cordially earlier when he’d spared a moment to check up on things, gushingly almost, and congratulated her on her work at Interpol. He was back to his official self; busy and far more important than she’d ever be. It was a curious context, given the work she’d done in the last week for him. It made her feel like an outsider, but that was common and not unexpected. She didn’t do her job for thanks.
Everything changed in a second. An ear-splitting cracking sound made the crowd of people duck and scream. Two of the vast windows of the Hall of Mirrors shattered into a thousand pieces onto the floor as Helen watched and screamed into her earpiece.
She could hear Roy White shouting, and it rang in her head. She saw him run into the Hall of Mirrors, pointing his weapon skywards and waving his free hand, dashing for the American president. But he couldn’t get through. The president’s bodyguards were manhandling him away from the room. But he didn’t want to be bundled like a child and began to object. Women screamed, caterers dropped their trays and people charged for the doors.
Behind her, a second crash of glass made everyone turn towards the windows, except the close-protection teams, who were trained to do the opposite. Air rushed in with the flying glass and Helen watched as shards stuck into bodies and people fell down.
‘Cover your faces!’ she screamed. She found a table and stood on it, flailing her arms about and taking the safety off her weapon, bellowing her words out. A queer hush fell upon the chaos and people began to realise that, one by one, a stream of mini helicopters had entered through the windows. Five, six and then seven flew in through the gaping frames.
For a second it was like a scene out of the War of the Worlds, where no one quite believed what they were seeing. Helen jumped onto a table and bawled. ‘Cover your faces!’ She drew her other pistol and aimed both at one of the drones as two lights turned red in the front. She’d said herself that to bring a drone down with gunfire was impossible, but she had to try. She fired both weapons, emptying the barrels, and hit it, and watched as it dropped like a stone on to the floor. More people surged forward and toppled her table but she managed to remain on it as it steadied.
Another drone stopped in front of a man frozen in fear. Helen recognised him as the Canadian prime minister, who was being dragged by his security detail, but they were struggling to move him as they were pressed up against the crowd. She reloaded, took aim and got four shots off
, bringing it down.
Suddenly, she was thrown from the table by an explosion behind her. Her ears rang, and she saw people on the floor and a space where the epicentre had been. She spotted a severed foot with nails in it, bastards. People were now running in all directions.
Panic had gripped them. Scores of bodies were on the ground, cowering behind suit jackets, tablecloths and napkins: anything to cover their faces. But others were stunned into inaction and another explosion caused more windows to shatter as well as centuries-old mirrors that fell apart with the blast. The noise of broken crystal, accompanied by the spectrum of reflective colours on the glass all around them, was mesmerising, but Helen didn’t stop moving. She spotted the British prime minister and saw him bundled out of the room, on his hands and knees. Then she saw Sir Conrad frozen to the spot. She ran to him and grabbed his arm, throwing her jacket over his head.
‘It’s programmed to read your face,’ she hissed breathlessly. He was easy to drag away in his state of fear, and she managed to get him out of the room before they heard a third explosion.
Then silence and three thuds, which she later found out were the unexploded drones dropping to the floor, as they failed to identify their targets. Two had been successful, and she’d taken the other two out.
The British prime minister’s face was ashen.
‘Car!’ screamed Helen, cocking her weapons upwards, looking for more drones. Where the fuck had they come from? Her mind raced.
‘How did they get past the snipers?’ she hissed at Roy in her ear. ‘Haven’t they got sights on their weapons?’
He confirmed his position and informed her that he was taking the US president to Marine One, which was waiting on the lawn. She replied that she was accompanying the British prime minister and the ambassador back to the British embassy. The prime minister’s primary armoured vehicle pulled up – a four-tonner – but she refused and instead directed them to the ambassador’s driver who she’d spoken to earlier. His saloon was less-heavily armoured, but still effective under fire. She ordered them in while she jumped in the front.
The PM’s personal bodyguard climbed in beside him and they set off, followed by four cars carrying the other members of the prime minister’s security team. Helen leant over into the back seat, surveying the sky, expecting another attack. Sir Conrad huddled with the prime minister and his bodyguard, being knocked from side to side, having not bothered with seat belts.
‘Put on your belts and get down!’ she ordered them.
‘What happened?’ The prime minister was shaking.
‘Sir, just sit tight and we’ll get you to the embassy. It was a facial-recognition-drone strike, sir. You’re okay now.’
‘But the explosions?’
‘There were casualties,’ she said. Helen looked at her shirt where it felt wet and realised that she had human matter on her clothes. She ignored it. Sir Conrad handed her a napkin with shaky hands and she wiped at her shirt, scrunching the napkin up and placing it in a side pocket of the door. She checked her weapons and chose the Sig Sauer P320, cocking it towards the window.
‘Stay down,’ she ordered the others, except the bodyguard who had his weapon cocked on the opposite side. They spoke without words and fell into a dual pairing as they would if they were clearing a room together.
‘What route are you taking?’ she asked the driver, facing the front.
‘A13.’
She nodded and kept looking around. They saw Marine One take off, and the decoy full of Secret Service agents flanked it. They’d never know which one carried the president. She radioed ahead to the gate, and it was flung open as they sped out towards the autoroute.
As they reached the quiet of the main road, Helen’s body didn’t relax.
‘Keep all windows and doors locked,’ she said.
‘Did you see them coming?’ she asked the guard. He shook his head. Like everyone, he’d just heard the windows smash.
‘Are you alright?’ she asked him, noticing two nails sticking out of his hand.
‘It’s nothing,’ he replied.
She was now out of range to hear Roy, and he’d have switched to a different channel anyway as all his efforts were to keep the president safe. Soon, they’d have the PM back in the confines of the embassy, which had already been told to prepare for the highest alert scenario. No one else in and no one out.
‘I need to call my wife,’ the prime minister said. Helen thought he might vomit and looked around for a bag. The driver indicated the glove compartment, and she handed him a sick bag. He spoke briefly to his wife and placed his mobile back in his pocket.
‘What a major balls-up,’ he said. Helen remained looking forward as she prepared to be blamed for everything that had just unfolded.
‘My guess, sir, is that they were built on site.’
She’d flagged the scenario several times, but it had still happened under their noses, and she had no idea how. The question was who were the assemblers and how had they got the necessary equipment past the dogs. Particularly the explosive. Helen knew better than to postulate and trusted everything would become clear as the inevitable inquiry was rolled out. She wondered if Fawaz had been on site.
‘ETA at the embassy is seven minutes, sir,’ she said, looking at the satnav.
‘Put the radio on,’ the prime minister ordered. The driver did so. ‘It’s in damn French,’ he said.
Helen translated. The news had hit the media and Versailles was in lockdown.
‘Seven dead, thirteen injured. The French president and the German chancellor are unhurt.’
‘That’s a shame,’ The Prime Minister’s acerbic humour was legendary. Helen watched as two of the security vehicles pulled in front of the armoured car and two remained behind. The PM’s personal bodyguard communicated to the other cars and they agreed a dummy route. Pedestrians stood and stared at the spectacle.
‘Who did the final check of the undercarriage of this vehicle?’ she asked.
‘No one’s been near it since it left the embassy this morning,’ the driver confirmed.
She was worried about tracking devices but trusted the prime minister’s team to do a thorough job. She dialled Peter’s number and checked in. He’d been in the room behind the Hall of Mirrors when the shit hit the fan and watched them leave. He remained back at Versailles to help the emergency services.
‘It’s carnage. The Americans are working on one of the failed drones already. They’re trying to trace the signal it used before it cut out due, they think, to not identifying its facial target in the time allotted to it. I’ve seen one of them – C4 ready to go, all still intact – it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.’
‘Manufacture?’ she asked.
‘Parts any Joe can order online from Amazon.’
‘My money is on them originating in Mustafa ibn Tafila’s workshop,’ she said. ‘ETA is six minutes, I’ll call you when we’re inside the Embassy.’ She hung up.
The atmosphere was eerily quiet as they drove in a cavalcade of five towards the Bois de Boulogne. She swallowed hard and needed water, but she ignored her thirst.
The park was busy as always and people stared at the entourage, some, no doubt, having heard the news about the attack on Versailles. The ancient seat of kingship, turned into an iconic trophy of the end of all wars, now turned into a bloodbath by a very different enemy.
Her hands still grasped her weapon tightly, and she wasn’t happy to flick the safety on until they were inside the embassy compound. She was reminded of Afghanistan, where she’d been travelling behind a Warrior IFV when it ran over an IED and exploded, throwing its two cannon operators twenty feet in the air like dolls. The men inside were toasted alive.
They neared the Jardin d’Acclimatation, and soon they’d be on the Champs-Élysées.
The vehicle in front leapt five feet off the ground and an ear-piercing bang made the driver swerve. Helen knew straight away that it had driven over an IED. Their vehicle stopped, and she si
de-glanced at the driver, who was reaching inside his jacket. She raised her weapon with seconds unfolding before her as her rules of engagement flashed before her. She was unaware of the prime minster or Sir Conrad screaming, only that this man was reaching for a weapon. Disbelief made her hesitate, but his face said it all: he was reaching to aim at her. His face crumpled in determination and he failed to respond to her demands to communicate with her. She made a split-second decision.
She shot him between the eyes and blood spurted onto the car ceiling. She turned to the prime minister and Sir Conrad who stared at her horrified.
‘Get down!’ The bodyguard shielded both of them with his physical presence and nodded to her, oblivious to his injuries. The cavalcade had stopped dead and Special Forces were spilling out of cars, pointing weapons, taking cover behind car doors and crawling along the ground. She grabbed the body of the dead driver and reached over to open his door, shoving him outside with her feet and as much power as she could muster. The bodyguard helped.
‘Belts on! And that’s not a request!’ she screamed.
She settled in the driver’s seat and rammed the car into reverse, checking behind her for an escape route. She floored the accelerator and got to around fifty kilometres an hour. She plunged the gearbox into neutral and waited for the engine to smooth over, then, without warning, she turned the steering wheel from left to right. The car turned one hundred and eighty degrees, screeching on the tarmac, and Helen heard panting from the back.
‘Bravo,’ the PM’s bodyguard complimented her. She ramped the gearbox into drive and accelerated away the way they’d come.
But it wasn’t over.
Two men emerged from behind the treeline. Park visitors screamed and ran away, grabbing children from picnic rugs and diving for cover. Gunfire rattled over the bonnet and they all took cover inside the vehicle. They slammed into a tree.
The impact wasn’t serious and Helen was barely winded. She scanned the faces of the two shooters. They both carried short-barrelled automatics with an extra AK-47 slung over their shoulders for good measure. One of them was Fawaz bin Nabil. She realised in horror that the attack on Versailles was a diversionary ruse: his true target was Sir Conrad and the PM, and she’d driven them right to him. Here in the early-evening sunshine, in the middle of families enjoying picnics, he planned to gun down those responsible for his son’s death.
