Latent Hazard rkadika-1

by Piers Venmore-Rowland

  It was a bitterly cold day. Thankfully, many of those who had been out in the open had the benefit of wearing heavy winter clothing and much of the radioactive material was removed by simply stripping them of their clothes.

  Once naked, the radiation readings were taken again. For those with external contamination and whose skin was intact, it was a relatively uncomplicated procedure: a thorough wash under a shower of warm water and a good scrubbing with a soft brush or surgical sponge. These soon ran out and were replaced with strips of towel. The small proportion with more severe contamination was moved on to a second decontamination section for more thorough treatment.

  The brigadier and his team had devised a processing system which enabled those running the holding areas and the decontamination centres to keep track of people’s identities. Bar coded hospital wrist and ankle tags were used and these gave details of whether the person’s identity had been confirmed before they had been parted from all their belongings. This data was cross-referenced with a central database, along with their digital photograph and their basic biometric details.

  London City Airport was turned into a transport logistics centre. It was cleared of all its civilian traffic and became a military airport. The runway, at 1,319 metres, was long enough for it to take the CN-235 tactical military transport and Hercules planes. Its close proximity to the exclusion zone was a stroke of luck.

  Nearby, on the southern edge of the exclusion zone, the army had set up its field HQ. The coordination of people’s movements, prioritising the casualties and the problems of the long queues at the emergency decontamination units were an administrative nightmare. Logjams became common place as the system struggled to deal with the huge numbers. Nevertheless, substantial progress was being made.

  An SOS had gone out to all neighbouring countries which could get decontamination equipment into London City Airport within three hours. The Belgians, Dutch, French, Germans and Irish all contributed to this urgent request from COBRA. By midday their transport planes started landing with their cargoes of decontamination equipment, medics and medical supplies. By early afternoon, planes were stacked high above the southern approaches to the airport, waiting for a landing slot.

  Phase Three was proving more difficult. How were the watercourses to be dealt with? Radioactive particles had been thrown violently into the air by the explosion. Those that entered the nearby canal, the River Lea, or the water table would be transported slowly towards Docklands in the City of London. Unless they were stopped quickly, the scale of the exclusion zone would have to be widened, threatening Docklands and the eastern fringes of the City of London. Colonel Gray’s team was given responsibility for coordinating this.

  Rafi and Kate stood at the side of the Ops Room looking on in awe. The Air Chief Marshal’s military machine was an impressive sight. The scale of the operation beggared belief. By early afternoon the last task given to the Wood Street Ops Room in respect of Stratford had been completed and an exhausted Air Chief Marshal handed over to COBRA and the command centre in Wilton, near Salisbury.

  Under the watchful eye of the brigadier, the focus of the Ops Room moved back to coordinating the capture of the terrorists.

  Rafi became aware that Ewan was standing next to him.

  Ewan had a pretty good idea of what was going through Rafi’s mind and put his arm around Rafi’s shoulder. ‘You know, had it not been for your early warning, we would be faced with a catastrophic disaster far bigger than anything we are witnessing. Your forewarning gave the Air Chief Marshal the opportunity to take the unprecedented step of putting the whole UK military machine into a state of readiness a full five and a half hours before the train was hit. Your determination to beat the terrorists has enabled us to have a response time we could never have dared dream of. I know it won’t make you feel much better, but thank you.’

  While all eyes were on the unfolding disaster at Stratford, MI5 had been tasked with the surveillance of the two Chechen terrorists who were on the run. Without their Kornet and Vektor missile launchers they no longer posed a serious threat to national security. The PM, in approving the plan to let the terrorists run, had made it crystal clear that if they posed any danger to the public they should be stopped by whatever means necessary. The object of the exercise now was to round up the terrorists, their associates and the ringleaders.

  Sergy Kowshaya, fired up by the success of his missile attack at Cruden Bay and his escape from the hail of bullets, had in a well-executed move swapped his motorbike for an elderly car. Unbeknown to him, however, he was being observed. He opted for a circuitous route up the coast to retrieve the Vektor mortar he’d left in the utility van the afternoon before. The van was parked on the grass verge in front of a terrace of cottages, just over a mile to the north-west of the St Fergus gas terminal.

  Sergy made good time to the van and, 300 metres short of it, he steered over to the bushes at the side of the road, stopped dead and inspected the scene in front of him. All was quiet. He felt under his leather jacket for his Stechkin automatic pistol. He paused and then continued on his way towards the van. Adrenalin pumped through his veins. He knew he would be vulnerable as he approached the van. If the security services were on the ball, there was the possibility that they could have pieced together the location of his second target. If so, they would be watching the surrounding area like a hawk for all unexplained movements.

  He stopped his car in front of the van, pulled out a set of keys from his jacket pocket, walked over and opened the van’s sliding side door. On the floor were two heavy-duty workman’s tool bags. He lifted them up, turned and made for the small gap in the hedgerow a few metres away. He dropped to his knees, opened the first bag and lifted out the Vektor mortar. In moments it was pointing through the gap towards the St Fergus gas facility and storage tanks over the slight hill in the distance. He had already calculated the sets of angles of trajectory and compass settings required in ballistic mode. The missiles would explode above the main gas storage tanks.

  In the second tool bag, lying next to the mortar, were twenty missiles. He pulled opened the top of the bag, picked up a missile and, in one fluid movement, dropped it down the barrel of the mortar.

  ‘Svoloch!’ he swore in Russian. The damn thing had misfired; either the firing pin was damaged – but he’d checked it the day before – or it was a dud missile? If so, there was an outside chance that the missile could go off at any moment. The odds were that it was a dud, but did he want to risk it exploding as he got it out of the barrel?

  Sergy then did what he would never have done on the battlefield: he left the mortar where it was, put his hand into a side pocket of his jacket, fished out a small explosive with a timing device, armed it and placed it in the bag with the nineteen remaining missiles. He stood up, returned to his car and left the scene, heading towards a small industrial unit on the outskirts of Peterhead.

  He was in contemplative mood; he was €3 million richer after his success at Cruden Bay, but destroying the St Fergus facility would have earned him a further €1 million. He abhorred the sense of failure, but whether he had €3 million or €4 million in the bank made little difference – he was now richer than in his wildest dreams.

  Moments after Sergy’s car had disappeared out of sight, the three special services men who had been watching his every move broke cover. They had known that the terrorist would suffer a misfire, as they had removed the firing pin, and had watched Sergy place an explosive in the bag with the missiles. The nearest soldier was seventy-five metres away. He spoke with his commander. It was agreed that the terrorist had left an explosive with a time delay to cover his tracks. It was now time to decide whether to investigate or wait for the big bang. The SAS soldier ran crouching close to the ground. If it had been him, he would have set the device to explode in ten minutes in order to give him time to get well away from the scene.

  He opened the bag. His eyes locked on to the small explosive device. It was a small but lethal piece
of plastic explosive with a sophisticated timing device. The digital readout showed 0:37. Delicately, he picked it up and walked fifteen paces out into the field, placed it on the ground, turned and ran for cover.

  Sergy wound down his window; it was a bitterly cold day and the heater of his old car barely made an impression on the wintry air flooding inside. He heard the dull bang of the explosion; it was far quieter than he’d anticipated. His mind put two and two together. Koit, the Russian bastard, had sold them duds. He wound up the window and thought unspeakable thoughts. Suddenly, not having the full €4 million rankled.

  Twenty-five minutes later and still thinking foul thoughts, Sergy arrived at the industrial property that had been his base for the past twenty-four hours.

  Away from prying eyes, he swapped his car for an old moped and changed into scruffy sailor’s clothes. Unbeknown to him, the front of the property was being watched. It was on Rafi’s list.

  Sergy opened the back door to the industrial unit and left via an overgrown dirt track on a short cut through an adjoining property. He came close to losing those watching him, but as he turned into Catto Drive his moped chugged straight past the nondescript MI5 communications vehicle coordinating his surveillance. Instead of heading straight for the harbour he went to a truckers’ cafe a mile away. Here he consumed a hearty English breakfast washed down with several cups of coffee, read a tabloid newspaper and watched, with pleasure, the awful news on the small television secured to the wall. The team, watching his every move, kept their distance.

  Just before noon Sergy paid, got on his moped and headed slowly towards the docks. He counted three police cars with lights flashing pass by. They paid not one jot of interest in him. At the docks, he parked a short distance away from the trawler Northern Rose, went into a warehouse and came out moments later carrying a crate of supplies. He headed towards the trawler and climbed on board as she was slipping her mooring lines.

  Sergy stood on the deck for a few moments, as if he was looking for a colleague, and then went below deck. Northern Rose motored out to sea and set a course northwards; one that would take her safely past Rattray Head. An hour later she changed course to north-north-west, heading towards Duncansby Head, the Orkney Islands and the Pentland Firth.

  The MI5 team were pleased to see Sergy safely on board. Now he was away from the public, the prospect of collateral damage had receded.

  Meanwhile, the Nimrod aircraft tracking Golden Sundancer picked up Northern Rose as she headed northwards. The navigator spoke to the Ops Room and COBRA, and gave a predicted rendezvous between the trawler and Golden Sundancer north-west of the Pentland Firth, around 18:00 hours.

  Dakka Dudayev, the terrorist who had caused the carnage at Stratford, left the industrial building in a sports hatchback and had, so far, evaded detection. The team tasked with tracking him had become worried; he was thought to be making for North Walsham, but, an hour and a half after the Stratford attack, his precise location was still not known.

  There were sighs of relief when he was seen turning off the M 11 on to the A 11. Dakka motored up the A140 to Aylsham and on to North Walsham.

  When Dakka entered the industrial estate he saw smoke and flames coming from the industrial unit, two down from where he’d stored his Vektor mortar and the twenty high-explosive shells. Parked right in front of his factory were a fire engine and a police car. The whole area had been cordoned off. He did not hesitate. He casually turned his car around and headed for Great Yarmouth.

  Those watching him were pleased to see him leave.

  On the outskirts of the town, he slipped off the main road into a housing estate and headed for a lock-up garage. After swapping his casual attire for nondescript fisherman’s clothing, consisting of a duffle coat and patched trousers, and his sports car for a moped, he slowly made his way to the ship repair yard.

  At the docks, Dakka Dudayev left his moped a couple of hundred metres away from where Rosemarie was berthed. He walked calmly down the road, through the ship repair yard, past the dry dock, on to the dock side and stepped aboard Rosemarie as her mooring lines were being cast off.

  At just after 4 p.m. Rosemarie motored out to sea, turned south on to a bearing of 179° and ratcheted her speed up to an impressive fourteen knots. She, it was thought, was heading for the Straights of Dover, with a likely rendezvous point with Golden Sundancer somewhere beyond the Isles of Scilly.

  A second Nimrod was on station to monitor Rosemarie’s progress in case she put into port to offload her human cargo.

  In Scotland, the industrial property at Prestwick had been under surveillance by a special forces and MI5 unit since the early hours of the morning. Alistair Hartnell, Basel Talal’s number two, had been identified as a passenger on an internal flight from London Stansted to Prestwick the night before. Hartnell was lying low in the industrial property. He had been joined by an unidentified man late in the evening. His colleague, it transpired, was Kim Chindriani, the man responsible for recruiting potential suicide bombers.

  Neither was viewed as being particularly dangerous, but rather were seen as two rats abandoning the sinking ship. Just before midday they were observed leaving the property in a small car and were followed to the dry dock and ship repair facility just up the coast at Troon harbour. They left their car in the ferry car park and casually sauntered across to the ship repairer’s quay where they boarded Highland Belle a whisker after 1 o’clock. A few minutes later, the trawler set sail and settled on to a course of 233° at a speed of thirteen knots. She was heading for the North Channel. No doubt she would leave the Mull of Kintyre to starboard and head north-west out into the Atlantic to her rendezvous with Golden Sundancer in the early hours of the following morning.

  On board the trawlers there was sadness that some of their colleagues had not made it. The terrorists had been operating independently and had only been briefed on their targets, but had found out from the news channels that two of their colleagues had been killed at the scene of the attacks. However, the coverage was music to their ears. The combined effect of their attacks sounded devastating. The fires were still burning at Cruden Bay; dark plumes of smoke were coming from Aldermaston, Hartlepool and Heysham, and at Stratford they’d hit the jackpot.

  The sheikh and Maryam were also being closely watched. MI6 had sent a team to find Miti Lakhani, but had no news of his whereabouts.

  In Luxembourg, Maryam was acting as if it was a normal working day. She was due to remain there until Tuesday, when she was booked to fly back to the Gulf. The reports were that she was looking very pleased with herself.

  The sheikh, likewise, was doing nothing out of the ordinary and had spent much of the day at his palatial home, sunning himself by the pool.

  In silence, Kate and Rafi had left the Ops Room to get a coffee. After a short break they ventured back.

  The commissioner saw them enter and walked over to speak to them. He looked at Rafi with tired and slightly bloodshot eyes. ‘I see that the weight of the world is on your shoulders. You should be congratulated and should not feel guilty! Only two out of nine attacks were carried out. Cruden Bay pumping station will be repaired and will be out of action for a matter of months not years…’

  ‘But we let Stratford slip though the net,’ said Kate.

  ‘It was not your fault – understand that! The information came in in sufficient time. It was the system that screwed up and not you – please remember that.’

  He looked carefully at Kate. ‘Time you both got some well-earned rest. Rafi, your flat in its present state wouldn’t be very welcoming. My sincere apologies for turning your life upside down. We totally misjudged you. Perhaps we could put you up at a hotel?’

  ‘Thank you,’ Rafi replied gratefully.

  ‘Have a rest. But then, I’d appreciate it if you could come back and listen to what your economics team has to say. They have a meeting scheduled with the PM and the Chancellor of the Exchequer this evening, followed by the Bank of England early tomorrow aft
ernoon. If you could be back in action by, say, 6.30p.m. it would be appreciated.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Giles turned to go back to his allotted space on the central desk, when he caught sight of Saara, who was in deep conversation with the brigadier. ‘Your little sister is quite remarkable! For an unassuming person she packs one hell of a punch. Her understanding of things nuclear and her ability to decipher the experts’ suggestions is impressive. If your parents were around they would be very proud of you both… Kate, please look after Rafi. The outside world still views him as public enemy number one. He deserves some proper TLC. Remember, we need him fighting in our corner until all the terrorists have been rounded up and the financial gremlins have been slain.’

  Rafi was ready to drop. His head ached, his eyes hurt and was finding it increasingly difficult to take in what was going on around him.

  Kate gently tugged at his sleeve. ‘You have been working non-stop for nearly four days. Time to get some shut-eye. First, though, we need to visit accounts to sort out some accommodation for you.’

  As they walked down the back stairs towards the accounts office, the prospect of staying in a budget hotel filled Rafi with horror.

  ‘Are my credit cards working?’ he inquired.

  ‘Should be by tomorrow,’ Kate replied. ‘I’ll ask Jeremy to arrange for them to be returned to you as soon as is practical.’

  They arrived at the accounts department. ‘Hi,’ said Kate. ‘Let me introduce you to Rafi Khan.’ Kate explained their requirements and the importance of confidentiality.

  Rafi interrupted her. ‘What I need, please, is a comfortable hotel where I can pay the bill in a couple of days’ time. Unfortunately, my credit cards are still with MI5.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Could you please book me into a suite at the Savoy?’

  ‘That’ll cost a flaming fortune,’ commented Kate.