Javelin - the gripping new thriller from the former commander of Special Branch (John Kerr Book 3)

by Roger Pearce

  Saturday, 15 October, 11.36, Upper Thames Street, EC4

  Jack Langton’s Suzuki motorcycle was being repaired after his narrow escape in Victoria, so he was working with Melanie out of a silver VW Golf. They had spent the past forty minutes refining the surveillance operation around the City, including a dash to the Yard for any new leads from Alan Fargo in Room 1830.

  The alarm sounded as they were returning to link up with the fourteen units on the ground.

  ‘Red Nine to Red One, urgent message.’

  ‘Go.’

  ‘Correction, this is no longer an RTA…Repeat, not RTA. We have a Talisman… Receiving, over?’

  Talisman was surveillance code for a live terrorist attack. ‘Did I get that right?’ said Langton, with an anxious glance at Melanie. Red Nine was on Tetra Five, the protected channel his units used for surveillance operations, and they could hear raised voices with a lot of engine noise in the air. Langton screwed his face, turned up the volume and leant close to the speaker. ‘Pete? Talisman where?’

  Red Nine’s voice had risen a couple of notches since his initial message reporting a road traffic accident, RTA, blocking Southwark Bridge, and he continued as if no-one was listening. ‘I’m caught in a Talisman right now…Southwark Bridge. Multiple shots fired…I’m not carrying. Jack? Jack…you getting this? All units urgent assistance, Southwark Bridge.’ Langton heard the engine racing, as if Red Nine’s foot was trapped on the accelerator, then it dropped and surged again. There was a thud as he bumped over something, then the crunch of a collision.

  ‘Ninety seconds,’ said Langton, forced back in his seat as Melanie rammed her foot to the floor. ‘Red Three do you copy this?’ he continued, calling the young female comms operative managing Lars Arbeider’s office.

  ‘All received,’ she replied instantly, as a burst of orders crackled from the tactical firearms cell behind her. ‘And Trojans deploying now.’

  ‘From Red Nine, we have a white van. Citroen. Think they’re trying a mortar to the north side and we fucking missed it… There’s two down at least, handgun. Maybe more.’

  Red Nine’s name was Peter Webb. He should never have been there, but had fallen victim to the coincidence that trapped so many front line operators, the jeopardy that held life and death in its grasp. Webb was the Red Team’s trained black taxi driver. Alone and unarmed, Langton had redeployed him from a jihadi plot in Streatham to provide mobile cover outside the Ring of Steel.

  A second later came two unmistakable cracks of a firearm and Pete Webb screaming his Mayday. ‘Jesus, I’m hit. He’s fucking shot me.’ The diesel surged again, a tractor racing out of control. ‘Neck or shoulder. I’m bleeding. Shit. Fuck.’ They heard a screech of brakes and the sound of Red Nine yelling into the street – ‘Get in! Don’t argue. Now!’ – then a scrabbling and other voices, male and female, a door slamming and someone sobbing hysterically as Webb accelerated again.

  Charging east along the Embankment, the speedometer hovering above eighty, Melanie was already clearing Victoria Embankment as Langton responded, his Newcastle voice low and calm. ‘It’s okay, Pete. Get to the south bank and we’ll pick you up.’

  The Golf shot into the Blackfriars Underpass to a whooshing sound over the radio followed by a loud explosion, then Red Nine again, crystal clear above the tunnel’s echo. ‘It’s gone. The van’s gone up right in front of me. Fucking fireball…Bomb gone! We have a bomb gone. Mortar into the City.’

  ‘Hold on. We’re coming for you.’

  ‘You won’t get through. Wait one.’ Voices from the taxi, more screams as Melanie shot out of the tunnel into Upper Thames Street. People were crying in the back and then Pete again, shouting at someone. ‘Press the pad down there…doesn’t matter. Hold it firm so I can drive.’

  Traffic was light and the noise from a motorcycle racing from the opposite direction almost drowned out Webb’s order. His voice had risen again, anxiety seeping through the information. ‘Bleeding buckets here…two males to the north side. It’s a blue motorbike, both with Glocks…I’m going to…Listen, I’m gonna get to Southwark Street…need the paramedics. You getting this, Jack? Feeling shit…have to know you’re with me.’

  ‘Yes, yes. Hang in there.’ Langton swung his head round but the motorcycle had already disappeared, swallowed up by the tunnel. ‘That was blue, right, Mel? With two up?’

  But Melanie was already reacting, slewing into a handbrake turn at the junction with Southwark Bridge. She spun them into a neat arc between a double decker and low loader, rammed into first while they were still sliding and accelerated hard the way they had come. Braced against the door, Langton’s voice never wavered. ‘Red Three from Red One, officer down. Did you get Pete’s location, over?’

  The voice bounced straight back from the observation post – ‘Medics on way’ – just audible above the urgent voices behind her.

  ‘You hear that, Pete?’ said Langton. ‘Couple of minutes. We’re going for the bike.’

  ‘What’s the plan?’ said Melanie as they reached chasing speed again. ‘Surprise or interception?’

  Langton’s response was to slap the blue light on the dash as they shot back into the tunnel mouth.

  ‘They’re armed,’ she persisted, accelerating hard past a traffic tailback, her voice still measured and cautious. ‘We’re just going to find and follow, right?’ The underpass was about eight hundred metres long but they emerged into the sunshine in less than twenty seconds, swerving between a coach and a bus, Langton still silent as they flashed into a second tunnel beneath the Blackfriars Bridge approach.

  They spotted the motorcycle a quarter of a mile ahead on a tree-lined stretch of Victoria Embankment, the last in a line of cars and coaches slowing for the junction by Temple Underground station.

  Melanie braked and flicked off the blue light, holding back. They listened to Red Three in the observation post, coolly juggling messages from the City’s fast response vehicles, Trojan units and paramedic teams as they searched for Pete Webb in his bullet-holed taxi. Langton understood how these crises played out. From now, with the bomb gone, others high in the command chain would be giving the orders. But in these vital first moments, with Red Nine’s distress electrifying the airwaves, the critical judgments about his survival lay with Langton’s newest recruit, and she was not going to relinquish her grip until Pete Webb had been saved.

  Up ahead, they watched the motorcycle gently increase speed with the other traffic as the lights changed. ‘Everyone’s on it, Jack,’ said Melanie, nodding at the radio. ‘We should lead the Trojans to them.’

  They had traced a giant left curve alongside the river and the pall of black smoke over Southwark was clearly visible through the rear passenger window. ‘They just shot Pete,’ said Langton, then leaned forward to laser on the assailants. ‘Red Three from Jack, we have the targets travelling west along Victoria Embankment, towards Waterloo and Charing Cross. Stand by.’

  Melanie threw him a quick glance sideways. ‘You want me to go for them?’

  Langton was already reaching for his Glock. ‘They’ll do it again if we don’t stop them now,’ he said, vainly searching the mirror for other blue lights.

  ‘Okay,’ said Melanie simply as she charged forward.

  ‘Red Three, we’re in pursuit,’ said Langton, levelly.

  ‘West on Victoria Embankment, all understood,’ responded Red Three. ‘Please change to Three Zero and maintain commentary for Zulu.’ Zulu was the main City control room call sign, and Three Zero the designated radio channel for its live operation and back-up for Langton.

  The motorcycle took off a second later by Waterloo Bridge, just as Langton was leaning forward to flick through the channels. The bombers may have been spooked by suspicion of the Golf steaming onto their tail, the swirl of sirens from unseen units racing to the bomb scene, or the blue light from a solitary cop car racing along the opposite bank. Whatever the reason, they suddenly veered wildly between the two lanes of crawling traffic as the
y closed on Embankment station, roaring through a red light to swerve away from the river for Trafalgar Square.

  ‘Right, right into Northumberland Avenue,’ reported Langton calmly, flicking on the emergency light again.

  Caught in the tailback, Melanie crashed over the central reservation onto the opposite lane and charged after them. The bombers snaked between a batch of cars and tourist buses as they raced crazily onwards, with Melanie gaining ground in the oncoming lane. Dead ahead was a raised triangular island, a refuge for pedestrians waiting to enter Trafalgar Square. It was crowded with a party of about twenty children, none more than seven years old, all in bright yellow baseball caps, their bobbing heads vivid as a field of flowering rapeseed.

  Langton watched the bombers hurtle down the centre of the road and lose control as they flipped round a street lamp. The bike slewed straight for the island, mounted the kerb and took off. To Langton’s horror, the bike scythed through the children before careering across the street to collide hard with the square’s perimeter wall.

  The block of colour instantly dispersed into separate yellow dots as terrified children ran for their lives into three lanes of traffic, screaming in shock. Four or five children were lying to each side as Melanie eased the Golf through the clearance, a couple of women teachers with rucksacks racing from one child to another. To the right, a little girl was crushed against a road sign with her leg twisted at an impossible angle, a jagged shard of bone protruding through her tights.

  ‘We have to help them, Jack.’

  Langton stared straight ahead as the bombers remounted the motorcycle. A gun appeared in the hand of the pillion passenger, probably a Glock, like his own, just as a wild man leapt from nowhere and blocked his view, raving and banging on the windscreen, laying the carnage on them, too. Then the body fell aside and Langton’s luck ran out as the windscreen shattered, something punched him hard in the left shoulder and the air snapped twice more as the motorcycle raced away.

  ‘Zulu from Red One, Trafalgar Square, east side. Shots fired. Urgent assistance. Eight, nine children down.’ Langton was finally having to raise his voice, for desperate screams obliterated every other sound as Melanie followed the Honda onto the pavement, her fist staining red as she punched out the remains of the windscreen and weaved through startled bystanders impotent with shock.

  ‘Jack, you injured?’

  ‘Drive on,’ was all he said, his voice low again, the Glock suddenly in his lap. ‘I’m ordering you.’

  She chased the motorcycle into the square, where it shot through a close row of concrete bollards and tore diagonally across the pedestrian concourse, swerving to avoid a cleansing vehicle. Unable to squeeze through the gap, Melanie screeched to a halt, reversed hard into a J-turn and stormed along the base of Nelson’s Column. ‘They’re cleaning. I know a way,’ was all she said as Langton pressed a blood-soaked hand to his shoulder.

  At the opposite corner a removable iron post took the place of the last concrete bollard, and she slid sideways through the gap at forty, scattering tourists as they tore past the fountains. At the far end, the bombers had already reached the long flight of steps leading to the upper terrace.

  Langton wanted to say something but the words dried in his throat. He tried for the radio, but Melanie was doing the speaking for him, too. ‘Zulu from Red Two, officer down, officer down.’

  ‘Location.’

  ‘Still the Square. They have a hostage.’

  ‘What?’ whispered Langton, straining ahead, fighting unconsciousness.

  Four or five steps up the first flight, the gunman had his arm round the throat of a young woman in jeans and denim jacket. Beneath her, at ground level, a buggy gently sailed away on the breeze as she begged for her baby. Behind them, the rider was walking the damaged bike up the stairs, throttling the engine over each step. Melanie skidded sideways in another precision handbrake turn as one bullet spat through the roof and another skittered along the water.

  As they rocked to a halt Langton realised that she had positioned the Golf perfectly behind the square’s famous empty plinth, sheltering him from the gunman’s elevated advantage. He wanted to thank her for saving his life but she was already out of the vehicle.

  Fading fast, Langton was just in time to see her drop to the ground, weapon forward in locked arms as she rolled to the base of the plinth. He saw her crawl forward to neutralise the threat and keep him safe. He pushed his injured shoulder against the door to join her but the pain was too great, his blood sticky against the window as everything started to slip away. Fingers closed around the Glock, his focus finally abandoned him and he sank beneath the revving of the killer motorcycle, the tornado of sirens and Melanie’s voice, yelling at the bombers to let the hostage go.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Saturday, 15 October, 19.06, Cabinet Office, 70 Whitehall

  Kerr spent the afternoon at St Thomas’s Hospital just across the Thames from Westminster, watching over Peter Webb and Langton. Webb required immediate surgery and Kerr had hung around intensive care, restless and wary until the nurses convinced him that both were out of danger. Mobiles were banned but he took a call from Alan Fargo while coaxing a few words from a drowsy Langton, reacting so sharply that he almost dislodged the intravenous drip. The revelation from 1830 was concise but startling, a vindication of his judgment five months earlier.

  Bill Ritchie had his driver on standby at the Yard but decided to walk with Kerr for their meeting at the Cabinet Office. The evening air was cool and clear, their constitutional through Parliament Square a chance to speak face to face, agree a game plan for the Current Intelligence Group and digest Fargo’s information.

  Global panics excepted, the Silver Scrum was rarely allowed to interrupt the weekends of Westminster’s securocrats. Number 70 Whitehall looked deserted and even bleaker than usual as they approached along the darkened street, its brass name plates glinting in the light of a passing bus. Inside, a group in their twenties and thirties huddled in the anteroom, uncomfortable in their work clothes. Most were texting on their iPhones, probably hoping for a quick policy decision and race home to the country.

  The custodian looked blindsided behind his security screen as the committee secretary leaned in, tapping his pass on the counter with each repetition of the date, time and room booking. Eventually, balancing his apple core on the mouse pad, the jobsworth licked his fingers and reached for the phone. There was another hiatus as the Bull arrived with Toby Devereux, each making a show of ‘after you’ deference before cramming through the doorway together, like a couple of party gatecrashers. With the lift out of order and their usual room closed for redecoration, they scrummed down in B3, a bleak subterranean meeting space with a horseshoe of oak tables beneath a portrait of the Queen on a horse and, by the door, a forgotten vacuum cleaner, mop and bucket.

  The chairperson was Ruth Horbury. Wearing her trademark black pumps, she bustled in with an ‘Evening all’ while the group was getting settled, taking her seat in front of the fireplace. Jacket on the back of the chair, she scribbled on the agenda while the secretary set up his laptop. ‘Chop, chop, Tim,’ she muttered, running a hand through her hair.

  She flashed a quick smile at Kerr, perched with Ritchie at the end of the spur nearest the door. Devereux always sat on the horseshoe’s curve, just outside Horbury’s personal space, but this evening Finch upset the pecking order by squeezing between them. When he tried to engage Horbury in terror talk she excused herself and sought Kerr out again. ‘John, so sorry to hear about your officers this afternoon. How are they doing?’

  ‘Hoping for a full recovery. We were lucky.’

  ‘That’s good to hear.’

  ‘Thanks for asking.’

  Ruth Horbury was another core member of the nation’s intelligence family. Before joining the Cabinet Office Assessments Staff she had been a career GCHQ officer, a fluent Russian speaker rising from the ashes of the Cold War. She and Kerr had become friends since 9/11, as part of a
scratch task force working with the Americans. Afterwards, she had re-trained in Arabic to analyse signals intelligence in Baghdad and Kabul, before returning to head all language analysis at Cheltenham.

  Occupying the other seats were a secondee Kerr recognised from MI5’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, JTAC, the usual quartet of players from Home Office and Foreign Office, and a stubbled Ministry of Defence analyst Kerr had not seen before. Sitting opposite was Lisa Jordan from the Northern Ireland Office, the woman Ritchie had mentioned at Monday’s COBRA meeting. Kerr knew she was the NIO lead on human rights policy, because Robyn had interviewed her in Belfast. Beside her was a small wheelie bag, suggesting she would be flying home that evening.

  ‘Right everybody, order, order,’ said Horbury, briskly. ‘Apologies for the Saturday callout but it’s our worst week of mainland attacks since…well, I don’t know,’ she said, without leaving airtime for an answer. ‘Victoria, Cheapside and Southwark Bridge in six days. The dud at Canary Wharf, plus Hammersmith a month ago…’

  ‘Twenty-third of September,’ interrupted Finch.

  ‘…three weeks, but we still don’t know if it’s linked.’ She glanced at her papers. ‘Government. COBRA meets again at nine in the morning and the PM’s called an emergency NSC at Chequers for noon before he leaves for Berlin and the Article Fifty prelims.’ NSC was the National Security Council. ‘Home Sec will make a statement in the House on Monday afternoon. This evening’s readout will go to the JIC on…Tim?’

  ‘Monday at three.’

  ‘Everyone alright with that?’ she said, eyes lowering again. ‘Media. The Sundays are about to drop doo-doo all over us, and not much of what I’m hearing makes sense. I want a coherent narrative so Number Ten can draw up Lines To Take. Stringent LTTs are crucial. We need ministers to speak with a single voice. Avril Knight has interviews first thing, correct?’ she said, waiting for the Home Office nod.

  ‘Andrew Marr and Sky.’

  ‘And we don’t want anyone going off piste.’ She twisted her upper body to address the Bull, attending CIG as a one-time invitee. ‘Thanks for coming, Mr Finch. All very grateful. I have the casualty readout for Victoria and Cheapside as eleven and seventeen respectively?’