Airport - Code Red: BookShots

by James Patterson

  Ubah Hussein screeched as Cemal grabbed her arm. And that was when we moved.

  Chaz and I sprang forward so fast the guards barely had time to move. Essa was quicker than them. She grabbed a young guy from the floor. He was tall and blond and made a perfect human shield, even if he was yelling in horror and flailing around.

  Chaz and I were on the guards in a second. I slammed three fingers into the man called Cemal’s carotid artery and he went down like a sack of flour. I grabbed his P90. Chaz had landed a boot in Parizad’s throat, crushing his windpipe. We weren’t playing games. I spun on our guard. He was stunned but still managed to swing round his gun. I slammed the butt of the P90 I had liberated into his trigger hand, and the bastard squealed and dropped his weapon. Before he could move, I grabbed his gun. Chaz had snatched up a Glock from the terrorist he had just hit, slipping it into his belt as the man writhed on the floor clutching his throat and gasping his final breaths.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw the Iraqi, Yazid Hussein. He grabbed his wife’s arm and they bolted past me, heading towards the rear of the hall, the southern end and the lift that had brought us down from Level 1. Two men had stood there, but in the confusion they had fanned out left and right, leaving a gap which the couple made for. Yazid and Ubah were young and nimble as whippets. I caught a glimpse of them as they made for the stairs. Essa spotted them too, lifted her P90 in one hand and clutched the blond guy to her with the other. I caught the movement and tugged the trigger of my own assault weapon, spraying bullets half a metre above Essa’s head. She fell back, but got to her feet incredibly quickly.

  All eyes were on Chaz and me. I retreated, my left arm around our guard’s neck, flitting my weapon left and right to encompass the terrorists and the massed crowd of frightened passengers. There were screams and low moans from all around the hall. Chaz came up behind me, a P90 over his shoulder, and suddenly we were racing at breakneck speed to our right and the check-in desks.

  We got as far as the Cathay counter before three of the terrorists started firing at us. Our guy was obviously expendable. In one great rush, Chaz and I dived across the baggage-weighing belt, the guard between us. He was yelling, so I landed a swift jaw-rattling punch in the back of his head. He started to fall forward, but Chaz was there to steady him, and we crashed onto the broad conveyor belt. It was still operating. I had the guard pulled close and the three of us rushed along the belt. I could see two men hurtling towards us, their guns poised. They didn’t care who they shot. I don’t know how he did it, but Chaz had the Glock in his hand. He fired over the terrorists’ heads; too dangerous otherwise – we couldn’t risk hitting the bombs strapped to their chests. But it was so close the gunmen almost had permanent centre partings. That bought us a crucial couple of seconds and we were at the drop where the bags go down from the belt to the loading bay. Chaz and I braced ourselves, held tight to our hostage and we were over the lip and into the void.

  CHAPTER 23

  Black Detention Centre, North-west London

  The SAS had broken Miah Ahmadi at 9.09 a.m., just twenty-one minutes before the attack on Churchill Airport began. Colonel Jack Stewart dashed from the interrogation room, punching in the speed-dial number on his secure mobile. Captain Nigel Grant was a metre behind him.

  Stewart’s call went through to the Black Detention Centre’s Control Room across a ragged quad of weeds and broken playground. From there, Stewart was put straight through to HQ. It took him less than thirty seconds to explain. HQ then immediately declared a Code Red, and contacted MI5, Downing Street, the Commissioner of Police and the Lord Mayor of London. Special Forces were mobilised three minutes later. Downing Street set a meeting of the government’s emergency committee, COBRA, in Whitehall starting at 9.25 a.m., five minutes before Essa and her teams swung into action. The Prime Minister was escorted from Number 10 along a broad, over-lit tunnel beneath Downing Street 112 metres to the COBRA building where the meeting was convened.

  The first choppers to arrive had been scrambled from RAF Northolt close to the Black Detention Centre and a little under nine miles north-west of Churchill Airport. Jack Stewart and Nigel Grant were in the first wave, landing outside the perimeter. The airport was sealed off; all flights out were cancelled; all incoming flights directed to Gatwick and Stansted. Armoured vehicles started rolling along the Great South West Road to take up position.

  The focus of attention was Terminal 4. According to Miah Ahmadi’s confession, that was going to be the point of attack. Troops and Special Police Units had the building surrounded by 9.33 a.m. By 9.34 they had learned from a drone and several calls from the public inside the terminal that no terrorist attack had taken place there. At the same time, the commander of the Joint Forces Assault Group close to Terminal 4 was informed that the attack had taken place a mile to the north, in Terminal 3.

  The media got to the scene only minutes after the military and police had set up a cordon sixty metres from the building. The normal sounds of Europe’s busiest airport – the roar of a plane taking off or landing every forty-five seconds – had been replaced with an eerie quiet broken only by the whir of choppers, the buzz of drones and the noise of seven hundred army and police personnel under the overall command of General Sir Miles Deering.

  From their chopper, Colonel Jack Stewart and Captain Nigel Grant, the men who had broken the terrorist prisoner at the eleventh hour, joined the general in his hastily organised Forward Command Post, a workman’s portable cabin butted up close to the northern entrance to the car park and immediately south of the main entrance into T3.

  General Deering had just opened the lid of his laptop and was about to give Stewart and Grant their orders when they all heard another fresh round of shooting start.

  CHAPTER 24

  ‘FUCK!’ I EXCLAIMED as I hit a suitcase on the stationary conveyor in baggage handling. I heard a thud and saw Chaz’s sixteen-stone bulk miss everything and slam onto the belt. He was immediately followed by the guard, who landed face first and was out cold. I shoved the guard as I pulled myself off the suitcase and rolled onto the floor, grabbed his combat jacket and yanked him towards me. He tumbled to the ground, groping his way into consciousness, cursing loudly.

  We were in a massive basement hanger. The machines had been switched off and stood still. The belts were scattered with cases and bags. There was no one around. The baggage handlers must have made a run for it as soon as the alarms went off.

  I pulled up our prisoner and slapped him a couple of times to bring him round. Chaz searched him for weapons and found a knife in the man’s boot. I saw a roll of nylon cord close to the conveyor. The luggage guys would have used it for suitcases with broken locks. Using the knife, I cut a length and, while Chaz held him, I tied the terrorist’s hands behind his back. I made sure the cord was really tight, tight enough to sting like a bastard. I cut a couple more lengths and tucked them into my pocket – they could be useful.

  ‘Name?’ I hissed, spinning the man round to face me.

  ‘Kaber. Nizam Kaber.’

  Chaz was checking out the room. ‘Ain’t sure if they’ll come after us or not.’

  ‘They’ll come for me,’ Kaber said.

  ‘You reckon?’ I snapped. ‘Personally, I don’t think they give a flying fuck about you, sunshine. But they’ll want to stop us. That vicious bitch’ – I flicked my eyes towards the ceiling – ‘certainly isn’t dumb. She knows we’re dangerous.’

  ‘If we head that way’ – Chaz nodded left – ‘we’ll be directly under Departures. It takes us into the heart of the airport. No telling how much of the terminal is under terrorist control.’

  ‘Move,’ I snapped at Kaber, indicating where Chaz had just nodded. We needed to find somewhere quiet and out of sight to start questioning our prisoner.

  We took off west, Chaz in front, then our new friend. I had the barrel of my pistol in the small of Kaber’s back. We reached a set of double doors that opened onto a broad passage. Chaz clung to the door fra
me and scanned the corridor with his P90, then waved us forward. We hung a left and then a right, dodging across the bend in combat mode just as we’d done in Baghdad.

  I heard them first – boots thumping on concrete. The sound echoed and that made it hard to judge which direction they were coming from. We pulled into a room and bolted the door. It was dark. The door had a reinforced glass window. We heard two men rush past and I caught a glimpse of black combat fatigues – two of Essa’s men. Kaber said nothing because he had the barrel of my Glock in his mouth. I found a light switch and fluoros flickered into life. It was a small office.

  ‘The air-con ducts,’ Chaz said. ‘Last place anyone would search.’

  I shoved Kaber into a corner and tied his feet together with lengths of cord from my pocket. Chaz and I dragged over a desk. I climbed up and Chaz tossed me a chair. I could just reach the grille over the duct; I unclasped the latches and turned back to Chaz. He was already scrambling onto the desk. He gave me a leg-up and I was inside the duct. Chaz grabbed Kaber, slung him over his shoulder and I soon had him with me. Chaz gripped my hands and I yanked him up.

  We knew how these systems worked – a tangled web of ducts and pipes that spread across the airport like varicose veins. The ducts were no more than just over a metre square, just big enough for us to move in single file, but there would also be plenty of maintenance hubs and concealed units where workers stored equipment.

  I cut Kaber’s ties and pocketed the cords. Then I led while Chaz came up the back. Kaber knew he would die with a string of P90 bullets up his arse if he tried anything.

  Twenty metres along the duct, we came to a junction. I took pot luck and headed left. It was hot and sweaty; the system had shut down. After another eighteen or nineteen metres, the duct opened out onto a maintenance hub and we clambered down into a tiny room three metres square.

  ‘Now,’ I said and prodded Kaber with the muzzle of my gun. ‘Time to start talking.’

  CHAPTER 25

  ‘STRIP TO YOUR underwear first,’ I said flatly.

  ‘My mother told me about men like you.’

  ‘Yeah, fucking hilarious! Do it.’

  As the man removed his combat gear, I passed the items to Chaz. It was the first chance we had to see Kaber up close. I guessed he was in his early twenties. He looked like he’d tried to put some bulk on his frame, but he was congenitally scrawny. He had a shaved head and big, cow-like brown eyes. He didn’t strike me as being too bright. He would have been radicalised easily.

  Chaz pulled an iPhone from the top-left pocket of Kaber’s jacket and a copy of the Quran from the back of the terrorist’s black combat pants. He tossed the book into the corner. Kaber reacted as expected, yelling in fury, his face red suddenly as he scrambled to snatch up the book. Chaz shoved him back.

  ‘Does it offend you, scumbag?’ Chaz bellowed. ‘Yeah, well, you know what offends me? Fucks like you killing innocent people in the name of your crappy religion.’

  Kaber hissed and pulled up against the wall. Chaz glanced at the iPhone. ‘Could be handy,’ he said to me and waved it between us. ‘Password,’ he demanded, fixing Kaber with a hard look.

  The man shrugged. Chaz flew at him, his hand at Kaber’s throat. I could see my friend’s fingers whiten as he squeezed.

  ‘OK,’ the prisoner gasped.

  Chaz released the death grip. ‘Well?’

  ‘Four, one, three, two.’

  Chaz tapped it in. I glanced at my watch. We had twenty-one minutes left.

  The phone let out a single shrill note and died.

  ‘You fucker!’ Chaz hollered and went for Kaber again.

  ‘Chaz—’ I held a hand against my mate’s chest. ‘Forget it. We need to know about the weapon.’

  ‘Yeah, Chaz,’ Kaber snarled. ‘You need to know about the—’

  I punched the bastard so hard, his nose shattered and blood sprayed out like water from a busted pipe. This time I grabbed his throat. ‘Now look, Nizam, you’ve seen enough Infidel movies to know the cliché. We can do this one of two ways, blah, blah, blah.’ I held his eyes with my own hard look, every bit as intimidating as Chaz’s.

  ‘Fuck! They’re well organised,’ I heard Chaz moan, looking at the destroyed phone.

  ‘Where’s the weapon?’

  Kaber was in agony, but he wasn’t going to cave in easily, that much was obvious. The blood had stopped spraying now. It just flowed in a stream over his tightly closed lips and wispy beard to his once-white T-shirt. He said nothing.

  ‘OK. Listen carefully.’ I flicked a glance at Chaz, who had pulled the terrorist’s own knife from its sheath. The man eyed it. ‘This is how it is, Nizam. If that bomb goes off, hundreds, maybe thousands, will die. We’ – I flicked my gun at my friend and back to me – ‘we can’t let that happen. We’re ex-military – we know how to reduce big strong men to blubbering heaps begging for their mummies. And we can do it fast. So, tell us where the bomb is.’

  Kaber looked straight into my eyes, expressionless.

  ‘I get it,’ Chaz said. ‘You don’t care about dying. I see that. Your seventy-two virgins and all. I know you believe that crap. But we won’t just kill you, Kaber.’

  The same look.

  Chaz leaned forward with the knife. I held the jihadist by the scruff of the neck. Chaz brought Kaber’s hand to the floor and, without pausing, sliced off his forefinger. The fucker screamed so loudly I was worried the sound would carry to the last place I wanted it to. I pulled his neck back and punched him in the mouth, knocking teeth into the back of his throat. More blood.

  I looked into Kaber’s smashed-up face. ‘Feel like talking?’ I said. ‘Where is the weapon?’ He spat a tooth at me. I grabbed his neck again. ‘Two more fingers, Chaz.’

  ‘Shwtowp.’

  I kept a grip on Kaber’s neck, his head down. Then, after a beat, I pulled him back. ‘Where?’

  He grinned and I had his face on the concrete in a fraction of a second. He felt the steel on his middle finger and yelled. ‘Bwasemwent. In wa bwasemwent.’

  I pulled his head back up again. ‘Good. Now, where in the basement?’

  He started to shake his head again, and spun to his left and then right so incredibly fast my hand slipped from his wet flesh. His slender build worked for him. He headbutted me and was up on his feet in a single, fluid movement. Chaz was stunned. Kaber kicked him with the flat of his bare foot, sending the huge former soldier and martial-arts champ back into the wall. Then the man was scrambling up to the duct we had crawled along.

  Chaz recovered fast, pulled up onto one knee and brought round the P90, but it was too late. Kaber had made it into the duct. Chaz leapt up and started to climb the wall.

  I caught the hem of his jacket. ‘Leave him, Chaz. We’ve gotta go.’

  CHAPTER 26

  WE CAME OUT into another empty office. I had kept track of where the ducts had led and figured we were now beyond passport control and security, beyond the main corridor leading off to the gates. I had an image of the map clear in my mind. I knew there was a second airport security office near here.

  I opened the door, easing my P90 vertical against my chest. Chaz was on the other side of the door frame, checking the corridor to my left. Then we were out and running, crouched low, sweeping our weapons. The causeway was deserted. It felt odd. I’d never seen an empty departures area anywhere, and certainly not in Churchill. It had always been busy 24/7 since it was built during the 1940s, back in the days when the public areas consisted of tents and duck boarding and it was known as London Airport.

  The security office was deserted. Chaz went straight for the comms. I checked my watch: nineteen minutes.

  My friend seemed to have a magical ability with machines. It was almost as though he and they shared some strange secret language. He leaned over a control panel, flicked some switches, punched in a few numbers and suddenly radio traffic broke into the room.

  ‘So much cross-talk,’ he said. ‘I can block us so that Essa wo
n’t be able to trace this.’ He nodded to the console. ‘And we can eavesdrop on them from here.’

  ‘Can you contact the military outside? I’m sure the terminal is surrounded by now. The choppers were airborne fifteen minutes ago.’

  Chaz ran his hands over the controls. The sound of a dozen voices began to fade and I could pick out three separate conversations, then one. Two men, one younger than the other; the older man spoke with a cut-glass Home Counties accent. I could visualise his moustache dancing as he spoke. ‘Roger that. Out,’ he said.

  ‘That one, Chaz,’ I said.

  He handed me a slick flat-screen device that looked like an iPhone that had been resting on a desk.

  ‘A smart radio,’ he said. ‘Scrambled . . . I hope.’

  ‘Hello? Who is this?’ It was the older man.

  ‘Hi. This is Matt Bates. I’m inside Terminal Three with my friend Chaz Shoeman.’

  ‘What the hell are you doing?

  ‘Trying to help. I’m hoping I’ve reached your Forward Command Post?’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s classified infor—’

  ‘Sir,’ I interrupted, deciding to come straight to the point and tell him everything I knew. ‘We were in the terminal when the attack happened. Too much to explain now, but we know where the weapon is.’

  ‘What weapon?’

  I held my hand over the receiver of the smart radio and rolled my eyes. ‘Fuck me! Trust our luck!’ Turning back to the mouthpiece, I went on patiently: ‘The weapon Hubab Essa told the world about on TV!’

  We could hear voices in the background. The soldier was obviously consulting with someone. I decided to just steam on. ‘Sir, we are ex-military – SAS Captain Matt Bates, decommissioned 2010, and Charles Shoeman, ex-Delta Force, decommissioned from US Army 2012. Check us out. Who am I speaking to?’

  Silence for a moment. Rustling and muffled voices.