Cry of the Needle

by Radford, Roger

  Magda continued to stare at the sleeping Irishman. He seemed so at peace, so assured of eventual victory, figuring that he had worked out all the angles. He’d even boasted to her that the police would never get to within a stone’s throw of the cottage; that if they did, they would set off enough alarms to wake the dead. Even the distant drone of circling helicopters high above had failed to faze him. ‘You get used to it,’ he had said. And he was right. In a strange way, they were kind of comforting.

  Still fully clothed, she swung her atrophied legs around and sat upright on the edge of the bed. She winced as the strangulated nerves in her lower spine shrieked their disapproval of the sudden movement. Magda took a deep breath and pushed herself upward. Now came the hard part.

  ‘It’s a go,’ barked Police Pilot Officer Darren Green at the three black-clad figures perched behind him in the Aerospatiale Eurocopter Twin Squirrel. He glanced around to see eyes that were bulging with the sudden adrenaline rush. ‘Don’t worry, lads,’ he said only half-jokingly, ‘Her Majesty’s Government has complete faith in you.’ With this, Green slammed all the fuses in the overhead panel, pressed the engine start button and opened the throttle. The twin Allison turboshafts burst into life. He then pulled hard on the collective pitch lever and waited for the torque meter to reach red, at the same time keeping his eye on the front edge of the disc described by the whirling blades in relation to the skyline. The gas turbines roared as he lifted gently off the ground.

  Despite some minor drawbacks, he liked this particular chopper. The Twin Squirrel was fairly sedate as helicopters go, with a slight tendency to tuck the nose towards the ground and a distinct yet easily controlled yaw to the right. It tended to wobble a bit in the hover, but not enough to upset the guys in the rear when they rapelled into action. He thanked God for a windless night.

  ‘Squirrel One airborne,’ Green yelled into the mike, knowing that his back up, Squirrel Two, would be taking off a few seconds later. The French-made helicopter’s maximum speed of a hundred and forty miles an hour was fairly redundant, given that mission target was only a few miles from Fairoaks airfield, Chobham, the base for the South East Region Police Air Support Unit. Once airborne, he moved the cyclic-pitch stick forward and the helicopter lurched ahead. It was a procedure he had carried out hundreds of times before. The only difference now was that this was no mundane sky patrol.

  Operation Whitehall had gone dynamic.

  Without the benefit of her sticks, Magda von Esterhazy was forced to hug the walls as she shuffled her way towards the open-plan kitchen. Every step sent a paroxysm of pain through her legs, and every step seemed to her to make enough noise to wake the dead. She continually kept her eyes on Kelly’s slumbering form. At any moment he might awaken. She had a couple of ready-made excuses, such as she was going to get a glass of water to take another pain killer, or on her way to the toilet. She knew that it wouldn’t hold much credence if she was caught with the keys in her hands. There were a thousand reasons why it all might still go wrong.

  Hardly daring to breath, the Countess finally reached the keys. She gingerly lifted the ring off its hook. The whole thing reminded her of an old fairground stall where one would have to pass an electrified loop over a wire without setting off the alarm. She clasped the six large keys hard so that they would not swing free and clang. She then inched her way back towards the staircase. Gripping the banister, she prayed that the stairs would not creak. Now which one was the bad one? One of them had groaned terribly when she had visited Tring, but which one? She looked intently at each stair, counting it mentally, as if that would aid her memory. The fifth one up, she told herself finally, more in hope than in certainty.

  By the time Magda reached the fifth stair, she was already sweating profusely. She rested against the banister and glanced round at the Irishman. Thank God, he was still snoring gently. Now came the biggest test. She gripped the underneath of her left thigh and hauled her leg up a double flight in order to miss the fifth. Stifling a gasp at the unimaginable intensity of the pain, she was forced to maintain the awkward position for a few seconds in order to prepare herself for the next move. Gripping the banister with both hands, she hauled herself to stand more or less upright on the sixth stair. She swayed slightly as a cry sought desperately to burst from her throat. It was pure torture.

  Once on the landing, she could see that Callaghan, too, was deep in exhausted sleep. The energy-saving light on the landing was bright enough for her to notice the holster bulging beneath his slumbering form. She knew she could never free the pistol without waking him. Operating on adrenaline alone, she inched her way past his fold-up bed to reach Tring’s door. Gingerly, she turned the handle.

  The professor’s room, too, was dimly lit. She left the door very slightly ajar and hobbled over to the mattress. She knelt down beside the slumbering scientist and whispered in his ear, ‘Jonathan, Jonathan.’

  Tring woke with a start, though, thankfully, made very little noise. He nodded as she placed a finger on his lips and showed him the keys. There were two for each set of shackles, but which two?

  ‘Callaghan’s asleep on the landing,’ she whispered. ‘He’s got a pistol, but I couldn’t steal it from him.’

  ‘Jesus, Magda,’ Tring whispered back, ‘I must have been mad to ask you to do this.’

  ‘Shush,’ she cautioned, and continued trying the first key. As luck would have it, it opened the foot shackles. Two keys later and she had released those around his wrists.

  Jonathan Tring was just rubbing them when the room was suddenly plunged into pitch darkness. Then a deafening thrum seemed to be right above them.

  Pilot officer Darren Green manoeuvred the Twin Squirrel into position about twenty feet above the roof of the cottage. There was simply no room for error. He had to be high enough not to blow debris everywhere and low enough to make entry as fast as possible for the men behind him, who had to fast-rope down in rapid succession. They all knew that once entry was achieved and the distraction devices deployed, the team had, at most, seven seconds in which to neutralise the hostage-takers. After that, the odds that hostages would die increased dramatically. Green rechecked his position finder. ‘Go!’ he screamed.

  The first black-clad figure slipped down the descender and landed inches to the left of the skylight. Still hooked onto the line, he used the rake and break to smash the window and clear the jagged edges. The noise of the shattering glass was totally lost in the din of the chopper’s rotors. Within a fraction of a second the rake and break had also inserted the distraction devices onto the upper landing. Facing away from the searing flashes that lit the cottage, the officer was also grateful for the earplugs that were protecting him from the cacophony above and below. He then unhooked from the descender and slipped through the skylight. As he landed, the flashlight attached to his H & K played on the startled figure of Sean Callaghan. Although totally disorientated, the Irishman managed to loose off a single wayward shot before a lethal burst scythed him down.

  At the same time that the chopper was over the roof, Commander Bob Simmons ordered the snipers to open up with massive firepower into the bare exterior walls of the cottage. If that didn’t confuse the hostage-takers, he thought, then nothing would.

  It was funny how the simple switching off of a light could sometimes be enough to wake a sleeping person, for Kieran Kelly was already working on autopilot by the time the first volley hit the sides of the cottage. Even in the blackness, he had managed to grope for the sub-machine gun with one hand and a switch on the console with the other. Suddenly, loud booms shook the cottage as the buried ordnance exploded all around.

  ‘The bastards!’ he cursed, the words drowned by the mayhem. ‘Sean, Sean!’ His cries were cut short by the staccato of sub-machine gunfire from the landing. Switching on the torch fixed to his weapon, he bounded up the stairs two at a time, paying scant attention to the empty bed against the wall.

  Knowing full well that the attackers would be wearing body armou
r, he fired a volley at head height in the direction of the torchlight facing his own. There was a loud scream as the black-clad figure slumped to the floor. The Irishman barely had time to make out the body of Sean Callaghan, which lay on the floor in front of him, before another black figure dropped down from above. Bullets flashed past him as he temporarily retreated to the stairs. He then aimed his sub machinegun around the corner and fired wildly. There came a further groan, mixed with a woman’s scream – Magda’s – that strangely appeared to be coming from the upper level. It was at that moment that Kelly decided that everyone must die.

  Taking advantage of an apparent lull in the attack, he burst into the first bedroom. His flashlight made out the petrified figure of Martin Townsend. A short burst and the doctor slumped forward, the rattle of his chains barely audible above the thrum of the helicopter. Kelly then entered the second room and fired into the body of Stephen Sellars, who was already lying prostrate with his hands over his head. One more, thought the Irishman, and justice would be done. His kind of justice.

  He almost fell over the bodies on the landing as he opened the door to Tring’s room. The torch fixed to his weapon played on the figure on the mattress. ‘Magda!’ he gasped.

  Professor Jonathan Tring, summoning all his strength as a prop forward, launched himself from the shadows at the dumbstruck figure in the doorway. As both men clattered to the floor, Kelly’s weapon slithered across the parquet, shattering the torch and plunging the room back into darkness.

  Magda von Esterhazy screamed as the two men grappled with each other, her mind completely frozen by fear for the safety of both of them.

  Suddenly a strange voice burst from the landing. ‘Turn the fucking lights on, boss, it’s carnage in here.’

  Kelly and Tring continued to wrestle for another few seconds until the sudden flood of light took both of them by surprise. The Irishman was the first to react. He pulled away and dived towards his sub machinegun.

  ‘No, Kieran!’ the Countess cried. The words were barely out of her lips before a burst of fire from the doorway cut through her lover just as his hand reached the stock.

  Kelly gasped and rolled over onto his back. Magda’s racking sobs punctured the cold mist of impending death. ‘Please don’t cry, Teresa,’ he groaned.

  A vision of exquisite feminine beauty hovered above him. His last thought was to ponder why Magda had dyed her hair red.

  EPILOGUE

  Professor Jonathan Tring and Fiona Harrington announced their engagement two weeks after the end of the siege and one day after the Prime Minister tended his Government’s resignation.

  Commander Bob Simmons and Inspector Dai Hopkin both declared that they were taking early retirement from the Metropolitan Police.

  One month later, the Labour Party, under new leadership, was returned to power with an even greater mandate after pledging in its manifesto to institute an inquiry into invasive spinal procedures.

  One year after the events at Rosedale Cottage, nothing had changed. Countess Magda von Esterhazy was continuing her lone battle for justice.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The motivation for Cry of the Needle was a life changing incident that happened way back in 1979, an event that brought a premature end to my journalistic career.

  There are some things in life that are highly predictable. One of them is that it will be hot and sunny in Tel Aviv, Israel, in early August. On one such day, 8 August 1979, I happened to be visiting the city that I love above all others when I felt my back give out. I was bent double and in terrible pain.

  I somehow climbed into a taxi and made my way to Tel Hashomer, the largest hospital in Israel. Within a couple of hours I had undergone a procedure that changed my life irrevocably. It’s called a myelogram, and is the injection of a dye into the spine in order that any prolapsed disc might be seen on x-ray. In those days, the dye was oil-based and was called Pantopaque. It was also too toxic for use in humans.

  Almost immediately, I began to feel symptoms such as pins and needles in both legs; symptoms that I had not suffered previously. The attack lasted for such a long time, more than three months, that my employers, the Reuters international news agency, decided that I was too ill to remain in work. So they put me on their Prolonged Disability Scheme.

  For the next nineteen years I suffered recurring bouts of an affliction called adhesive arachnoiditis, which would perhaps, in my case, be better described as chemically induced spinal meningitis. Its myriad symptoms have been described in the novel you have just read, so there is no need to repeat them here.

  In July 1998, I suffered a major attack that left me virtually bedridden for three years. It was also in that year that I was diagnosed correctly. Scores of experts had failed to do so during the previous nineteen years. Thanks to a self help group, I learned about the disease and its causes. Although still very ill, I felt the urge to continue writing, and to make my third book one that revolved around my illness. After a year of agony, and one in which sitting was purgatory, the result was the polemical thriller that you have just completed.

  Both Kieran Kelly and I were motivated by the need for justice. However, while he chose the gun, I chose the legal path, Unfortunately, I was let down in my personal quest for justice.

  In 2002, I felt well enough to pursue a case against the American drug company that made the dye. To this end, I contacted an American lawyer who was an expert in the field. He was prepared to take me on because I had never had any invasive spinal procedure apart from the myelogram (it is an iatrogenic disease, and any spinal procedure can be its cause). Unfortunately, the statute of limitations was only two years in Texas, and I was out of time. The lawyer, who has since become a great personal friend, suggested that I check the statute of limitations in Israel. I did, and it was seven years. This enabled me to file suit in the Jerusalem District Court in 2004 against the drug company and the Israeli hospital. While the illness was a horror story, the court case was Kafkaesque. It took eight long years before it was finally concluded, and not in my favour. I suffered delay after delay, exorbitant doctor’s fees, and an opposing medical expert who lied through his teeth. This was clearly shown in his testimony, which I am convinced would not have been acceptable in any UK or US court.

  To paraphrase Charles Dickens in Bleak House: This is the Jerusalem District Court, which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and begging through the round of every man’s acquaintance, which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give — who does not often give — the warning, “Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!”

  Dickens, of course, was referring to the court of Chancery in the 1850s. Sometimes I wonder how much our legal systems have advanced. Are they not still run by lawyers, for lawyers and on behalf of lawyers?

  A final word: The character of Magda von Esterhazy was based on a real-life Austro-Hungarian Baroness, a truly remarkable and courageous woman who lives in North London. Much of Magda’s background story is hers.

  Cry of the Needle followed my first two books. The Winds of Kedem, for which I drew on my experience as a war correspondent in Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur war, revolves around an Arab nuclear terror plot to destroy Israel.

  Schreiber’s Secret drew its inspiration from the trial in Israel of Ivan Djemjanuk, the so-called Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka, who in reality was Ivan the Slightly Less Terrible of Sobibor. It, too, revolves around a question of identity, as a Nazi sadist roams the London suburbs.

  High Heels & 18 Wheels: Confessions of a Lady Trucker is a work of non-fiction. The story (mainly in her own words) of Bobbie Cecchini is a tale of triumph over adv
ersity. It tells how a girl from Philly overcomes a series of personal horrors, four failed marriages and one of the most painful illnesses in the medical lexicon. But first and foremost, High Heels is the story of Bobbie’s adventures on the road as a lady trucker. Bobbie and I share the same incurable condition, adhesive arachnoiditis.

  My work tends to be eclectic, so I am currently working on an anthology of short stories entitled Tales of the Unexpected.

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  Roger Radford