Rafi glanced across to the clock. It had been several minutes since the commander had jumped ship. From the dots on the screen he could see that Golden Sundancer was making an excellent turn of speed away from the dinghy and the two life rafts.
Suddenly over the radio came the voice of a Moroccan fighter pilot in heavily accented English. ‘Golden Sundancer!… Golden Sundancer!… I have you on my radar – bring your boat to a stop. I say again, bring your boat to a stop!’
In the Ops Room the Air Chief Marshal spoke to the command centre. ‘We have to keep the two Moroccan fighters interested in Golden Sundancer and looking in the wrong place for about twenty minutes. Get the Harrier pilot to engage the two fighters in conversation and to tell them that there are British nationals amongst the hostages on board – and that they should shadow the motor vessel. I repeat, we’ve got to keep them looking in the wrong place! The dinghy and life rafts won’t show up on their radar, so they will be safe until the rain clears and the planes fly directly overhead.’
The seconds passed by. The Moroccan pilot would by now have Golden Sundancer on visual. What would he do? He had been warned that there were hostages on board. At 48-50 knots she could outrun anything that the Moroccan Navy possessed. A further command was heard.
‘Stop or I will open fire!’
‘Northrop Tiger, come in Northrop Tiger,’ said the Harrier pilot. ‘Be advised that there are British Nationals on board… Do not engaged !’
In the rainswept dinghy, the commander leant across to Jim. ‘If you hear any cannon fire, please push your little red button. The pilot will think it’s all his doing.’
There was silence and then a further command to ‘Heave to’ was heard. Golden Sundancer carried on regardless. In the distance there was the distinctive sound of a short burst of gunfire. No doubt the fighter pilot had aimed across the bow.
Jim pressed the little red button. Seconds later the deep boom and shockwave of the explosion reached the dinghy. He squinted through the rain, but could see nothing.
The radio fell silent.
Back at the command centre there had been initial consternation when the pilot had opened fire and seconds later Golden Sundancer had literally disappeared from the Nimrod’s screens.
‘Oh my God!’ the intelligence officer standing beside the team leader was heard to say. He’d just arrived back on duty and had missed out on the recent shenanigans.
Over the speaker came the voice of the Northrop Tiger’s pilot. He was calling up helicopter support.
The stern voice of the Harrier pilot meanwhile was demanding to know what the hell the Northrop Tiger pilot thought he was up to.
Meanwhile the Eurocopter on board the frigate Mohammed V had taken off to investigate. The sky was going to get busy and the nuclear submarine still had to make its pickup.
‘Right,’ said the chief in the command centre to the Nimrod, ‘Where exactly is our Harrier relative to the helicopter?’
‘She’ll be there in fifteen minutes and the Eurocopter will be there two minutes later.’
‘Excellent.’
Meanwhile the Harrier’s pilot was demanding that the two Moroccan fighters keep looking for survivors until the helicopter arrived.
In the rainswept dinghy, the commander was still dazed. The swell that had hardly inconvenienced Golden Sundancer was making life uncomfortable for those in the little open-topped inflatable, which was barely making four knots. Slowly, the commander calculated that they would get back to the life rafts in twelve minutes and the submarine would surface just minutes later.
The Nimrod continued to pick up the radio traffic between the Moroccan fighter pilots and their control centre. There was consternation. The Northrop Tiger pilot was describing the size of the explosion.
Jim had placed his explosive charges next to the cool box, which housed the four thermobaric Kornet missiles, which in turn weren’t far from the main fuel tanks full of diesel vapour. The overall effect was impressive. One moment Golden Sundancer had been there, the next she’d literally disintegrated into a fireball. Her debris had vaporised. When the flames and smoke cleared there was no sign of her.
A minute later the second Moroccan jet fighter arrived to find nothing but clear ocean. The presence of the RAF Harrier fighter thirteen minutes away, bearing down on their two planes, was causing concern at the Moroccan control centre.
Rafi listened to the colonel who was talking to the RAF command centre. ‘We have the makings of a major diplomatic incident if they piece together what’s really going on under their noses. Tell the Harrier to keep talking and to get them to stay where they are…’
The contents of the Chancellor’s third coloured folder grabbed Rafi’s attention. It was as though he’d been through the Treasury’s ‘good ideas box’ and was bringing them out, one at a time.
The Chancellor started to outline a new corporate structure. ‘The not-for-profit corporation will primarily be used for public sector bodies.’ His voice was clear and authoritative.
‘The structure of a not-for-profit corporation will be similar to that of a public limited company,’ he added in a businesslike manner. ‘Just like a PLC, it will have a Memorandum and Articles of Association. The difference will be that this corporation will have custodianholders instead of shareholders. The custodianholders will have limited liability, as is the case in companies limited by guarantee. The custodianholders will have the same role as shareholders, in that they will be responsible for holding the management to account. Custodianholders will be drawn from the managers of the business, its employees, its funders, local organisations, locally elected politicians and those who receive the services. The last group, the service users, will have the largest number of votes, but no group will have a clear voting majority.’
The Chancellor seemed to be enjoying himself…
Rafi’s attention was pulled back to the action going on off the Moroccan coast. The distant Nimrod reconnaissance plane reported that the dinghy had rejoined the two life rafts. All three specks on the rain swept ocean were ready, waiting for their rendezvous. The squall was clearing and they would soon be clearly visible to a plane flying overhead. Eight miles away the radio traffic between the Harrier and the two Moroccan jet fighters had been concluded. The Moroccan pilots viewed it as job done and had turned back to their bases minutes before the Harrier arrived.
The seconds ticked by.
The Harrier arrived, over the spot where Golden Sundancer had exploded, and waited for the Moroccan helicopter to get there so that a final search could be carried out.
The helicopter, in theory, posed a grave threat to the submarine, but with the Harrier in position that threat could be neutralised.
The command centre spoke to the special service personnel on board the life rafts. ‘Activate the homing device. You have less than seven minutes to get on board the submarine.’
Jim felt under his shirt and switched on his personal homing device for ten seconds – not 200 metres away, the submarine picked up the signal.
The order went out: ‘Make surface and prepare to take on board visitors.’
The sight of the Vanguard class submarine breaking surface at speed surprised those in the dinghy. They knew she was big, but relative to the life rafts she was huge!
‘The helicopter has you on its radar and has changed course to investigate – the Harrier is shadowing,’ came the message from the Nimrod. ‘Captain, you have less than six minutes before the helicopter has you on visual.’
Rafi sensed the tension in the room. It was going to be a close-run thing.
In a flurry of activity, a squad of naval ratings descended on the two life rafts and the dinghy. The ratings and three of the special service men hauled the eight uncooperative captives out of the life rafts and manhandled them across the deck to the door at the bottom of the conning tower. They were followed by those from the inflatable dinghy. Meanwhile, Jim had slashed the buoyancy tanks of the dinghy and the life rafts
and lashed them together, so that they would sink under the weight of the outboard engine.
The Nimrod was tracking the hostile helicopter and speaking to the submarine’s commanding officer. ‘You have ninety seconds before you’re in firing range. The Harrier has taken up a position above and behind the helicopter and continues to shadow her.’
As Jim hurried through the conning tower door, the command, ‘Secure hatches!’ rang out.
With seconds to spare, the submarine commenced her dive into obscurity and vanished from the radar screens.
Meanwhile, the Harrier and the helicopter pilots were in conversation.
‘The possible vessel has disappeared,’ advised the Harrier pilot. ‘I suggest we call it a day.’
‘We give it, say, ten minutes and we return to base? Yes?’
‘Affirmative,’ came the Harrier pilot’s reply.
Over the speaker Rafi heard, ‘All eight terrorists and all eight service personnel safely picked up. Diving and going into silent mode. Will speak later; ETA Devonport in forty-eight hours.’
‘Bravo Zulu, out.’ A cheer went up. A sense of relief filled the air. The submarine was heading back to Plymouth with its cargo safely on board.
The Chancellor was still going strong. He had been going through the contents of the orange folder in front of him and was explaining how the Government proposed to improve the transparency of corporate ownership, and how it was going to remove the tax deductibility of losses and associated costs incurred by those speculating on naked options. Rafi didn’t catch precisely what he was explaining, but from the attentive nature of the faces around him he was still having the impact of a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat. His audience was enthralled.
Meanwhile in Luxembourg, as soon as Golden Sundancer had reached international waters, Giles gave the signal to the local police team. The gendarmerie was waiting outside Maryam’s offices. Her arrest had been authorised by the Chief of the Luxembourg police. The evidence he had been shown was overwhelming and, off the record, he had agreed that a trial in London with the other three terrorists would be the simplest solution. Neither spoke of extradition. A British SWAT team, including a couple of SAS operatives, was standing by.
When the knock at the door came, Maryam was found entertaining a group of EU politicians in her boardroom. Their lunch had stretched right through the afternoon. For her part, she was celebrating.
Maryam, with the support of her influential guests, put up an impressive verbal fight, protesting her innocence. Things nearly turned ugly when she summoned her two bodyguards, however, the local gendarmes were prepared for resistance and the bodyguards were quickly outnumbered and overpowered.
In the commotion Maryam was bundled out of the room by two SAS men, down the service lift into a waiting car and transported to the nearby airport. At the same time, a substitute with a coat draped over her head was taken away to the local gendarmerie to keep up the pretence. Nineteen minutes after the main group of terrorists were safely on board the submarine, Maryam was in custody aboard a private jet taking off for the UK.
At that moment, Colonel Turner gave the order for a message to be passed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was still speaking at the dispatch box.
There was shuffling behind the Chancellor as he was handed a small folded slip of paper. He finished what he was saying, paused and then opened out the sheet so he could read the message. He read it twice. All eyes in the Chamber were on him. The silence was deafening.
‘Mr Speaker, I have been informed of a development; one which this House should be made aware. If the Speaker will permit, I believe that the Prime Minister should communicate this important news.’ The Speaker nodded.
Rafi grinned as he thought about the Chancellor’s stalling for time and the excellent initiatives he had produced.
The PM was passed the message, he read it, stood up and moved to the dispatch box. He hesitated, a ripple of uncertainty spread around the Chamber. ‘Thank you, Mr Speaker, I have some breaking news. I can inform the House that we have just received information regarding the terrorists who committed the recent atrocities.’ He straightened his shoulders and stood upright. The PM looked calm and confident. No doubt under the surface he was jumping for joy, but he was a master of his trade. ‘I can inform this House that special forces units have in the past few minutes successfully apprehended nine terrorists. They have captured the four leaders of the terrorist cell, the two mercenaries who wrought the carnage on Stratford and Cruden Bay, a recruiter of the Bishopsgate bomber and two accomplices.’
The PM paused to let the House take in the implications of what he had just said. ‘Furthermore, I am able to report that the two mercenaries involved in the attacks on Hartlepool and Heysham are safely out of action, as are the three who attacked Aldermaston. I am advised by the intelligence services that we now have in custody the leading players who conspired against us and wrought such terrible damage and grief on our country.’
There was a brief silence as the news sank in. Then, en masse, the MPs sitting behind the PM rose to their feet and started clapping and waving their order papers. Applause and cheers from the other side of the House soon followed.
Rafi watched as the Speaker let the House enjoy the moment before calling, ‘Order, order; pray let the Prime Minster continue.’
‘Whilst the terrorists were at large, I can reveal that we have been waging a war of deception against them. The terrorist attacks on Aldermaston, Heysham and Hartlepool were in fact foiled and what you witnessed on television were the army’s pyrotechnic skills being put to use. Attacks on the St Fergus, Bacton and Easington gas facilities were also foiled, as was an attack on the nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield. Sadly, these seven successes were overshadowed by the tragic events at Cruden Bay and Stratford. The catastrophic damage suffered at Stratford greatly saddens me. Memories of this attack will haunt me, forever.’
He paused to let the words of his last sentence sink in. ‘As we face up to the enormous losses incurred at Stratford, it is impossible to contemplate what the position might have been had the terrorists succeeded with all their planned attacks. Suffice it to say that we would have lost over fifty percent of our electricity and gas supplies and would be facing horrendous radioactive contamination in five locations.’
The PM looked up at the camera. ‘We owe a debt of gratitude to the commander-in-chief of our armed forces and his colleagues, who in the early hours of Friday morning responded to our intelligence sources and set in motion a vast damage limitation strategy. Operation Counterpane was set up to counter the anticipated attacks. It was the commander-in-chief’s foresightedness that enabled help to be at Stratford within minutes of the disaster occurring. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Royal Netherlands Air Force whose unreserved assistance was outstanding. And the Government’s thanks go to all those who ably and promptly came to our aid, in our time of need.’
Applause rippled around the Chamber.
‘The terrorists’ plotting was uncovered last week by the City of London police, during their investigations into the Bishopsgate bombing. The police and MI5 were helped to a significant degree by a tenacious individual whom they had wrongly arrested in conjunction with the Bishopsgate bombing. There are very many people to whom I would like to pay tribute. Their resolve helped stop the majority of the terrorist attacks, and their unstinting work following the Stratford disaster has been far beyond the call of duty. They know who they are. They did their jobs not to gain from being in the spotlight and to spin their story, but because it was in their very nature to fight against those who sought to bring this country to its knees. Their identities will be revealed in due course, but for the time being, let them relax in the knowledge that what they have done has been exceptional.’
The Chamber reverberated to loud cheers from all sides.
‘The past few days have been doubly difficult. We have been on the trail of the terrorists, but have feared that they might
be tipped off that we were on to them, only to disappear from our radar screens and then go on to commit a series of horrendous attacks about which we had no intelligence. The terrorists used their huge wealth to build a network of clandestine informants and to extend their influence far wider than we could hitherto have anticipated. They took advantage of the opaque intricacies of our corporate system and our lax border controls to manipulate and steer events to their own end. The extent of their plotting will be revealed over the next few days.
‘It is with humility, regret and deep sadness that I have to report to the House that my Government has been tarnished by this episode. The terrorists used a significant number of people to assist them. I am advised by the police and MI5 that the terrorists had in place a significant number of influential sleepers or moles, who in return for excessive remuneration became their eyes and ears. The identity of these sleepers has caused the intelligence services and me grave concern.’
Gasps echoed around the Chamber.
‘For example, MI5 identified two members of COBRA who were on the terrorists’ payroll, which is why an Operations Room was set up at the City of London police headquarters in Wood Street. The scale and magnitude of the recent attacks has made me realise how vulnerable we are to those with immense wealth, who take it upon themselves to either attack our society or use their money to influence those around them. Our freedoms, love of material things, and the chasm between the vastly wealthy and the rest of us have made too many people easy and obliging targets. It is with great sadness that I have to report that a large number of people in senior positions took huge sums of money for nominal amounts of work and did not seek to question what was going on – they were in reality working for the terrorists. They should have guessed it was too good to be true. Furthermore, in their greed, many were all too happy to receive this money in secret accounts offshore. Little did they appreciate that they were being groomed, and that they formed part of the terrorists’ information network.’
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