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

by Roger Pearce

  ‘You scumbag,’ said Kerr, stirred by the man’s coolness. With the Glock never wavering from his head, Roscoe had spun a semiplausible attack against Dodge to instil suspicion and buy time. In pain, his voice weakened from Melanie’s assault, Roscoe’s presence of mind was chilling.

  ‘If you don’t, I will, right now,’ said Roscoe. Ignoring Kerr, he fixed on Melanie again, his petrol grey eyes fully open in the shadows, and shuffled forward in the chair until Melanie shoved him back again. Then Kerr’s BlackBerry vibrated in his jacket, Gemma’s text quelling any doubts about Dodge’s corruption or Roscoe’s victimhood. ‘Livebait rec’d 11.06. Bomb at Greenwich, no further pars or time frame. Code Topaz. Caller male with Northern Irish accent. Search underway of borough core target premises annex. Banks prioritised. Best G.’

  Eyes never leaving Roscoe, Kerr held the screen up for Melanie, just as her own mobile beeped with Gemma’s group message.

  Kerr raised the Glock to Roscoe’s temple again. ‘That’s your bomb warning.’ He spoke slowly and deliberately, clocking a bright yellow hose reel tucked away in the far corner. ‘And your time just ran out,’ he said, speed-dialling Alan Fargo in Room 1830. ‘We have to do whatever is necessary, so I’m giving you one more chance. Where is the lorry now?’

  Roscoe looked up at him, grinning. ‘And I’m still telling you to piss off.’

  Fargo picked up immediately. ‘Alan, on the Livebait, tell them they should be looking for a vehicle. I’ll have more info very soon, so stay where I can get hold of you.’

  Roscoe chuckled as Kerr rang off. ‘Don’t bank on it.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘You’re too late.’

  ‘Who made the call just now?’

  ‘Go fuck yourself.’

  Kerr reached into his pocket for the plastic cuffs and covered Melanie as she secured Roscoe’s wrists. ‘Take his boots off.’

  Kerr ducked into the hideout for Roscoe’s towel, crossed the workshop and unrolled the hose pipe, trailing it back to the office. ‘Stand up,’ he ordered. When Roscoe slumped deeper into the chair, Kerr holstered the Glock and dragged him to his feet. He spun him round and crashed him backwards onto the desk, sliding him down until his head hung over the end. Looking for Melanie’s nod of assent, he forced the nozzle of the hose into Roscoe’s mouth. Face flooded with shock, Roscoe held himself as tight as a man with lockjaw, so Kerr leaned over him, pressing with all his strength until they heard his teeth splinter.

  ‘The clock’s ticking, and you know what I’m going to do,’ murmured Kerr. Another glance at Melanie. Silence from the prisoner. He twisted the nozzle to release water into Roscoe’s mouth. ‘If the bomb goes, no way do you get through this.’ Roscoe spat and wailed against the flow, arching his back and flailing his legs as water flushed from his mouth and nose. Kerr pulled the hose away. ‘Kick again and I’ll break your legs. Last chance, then it gets worse.’ A look of terror. Groans of disbelief, then silence again.

  Kerr grabbed one of the drawers Dodge had upended on the floor and gestured Melanie to lift Roscoe from the waist. He shoved the drawer beneath Roscoe’s backside and pushed his head down again, tilting his whole torso. Splashing water over the towel, he held it high until it dripped on Roscoe’s face. Roscoe twisted his head to flash a desperate look at Melanie, as if she, his most violent assailant, might save him from her partner’s craziness.

  Instead, Melanie shook her head and watched Kerr lay the towel over his face and hose more water. The soaked cloth ballooned outwards in a single, desperate exhalation, then Roscoe’s struggle for air sucked it inside his mouth and nostrils, creating a vacuum-packed outline of his face as the body slowly drowned. A slow count to ten before Kerr pulled the towel away, ‘Where?’ he said quietly, as Roscoe’s head thrashed beneath the desk.

  Kerr waterboarded him twice more. On the final application, his surrender came on a rapid count of five, the confession diluted with strings of blood and vomit. ‘The Dome,’ he croaked.

  Kerr calmly checked his watch. ‘How long?’

  Roscoe shook his head, desperately taking in air as Kerr leaned over him again. ‘Dunno. I swear.’ Kerr stared down into his eyes, looking for the truth, but the only fight left in Bobby Roscoe was for oxygen.

  Resolved, Kerr turned off the water and tossed his keys to Melanie. ‘Bring the car round.’

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Saturday, 22 October, 11.36, O2 Centre, North Greenwich

  As Melanie dashed from the workshop, Kerr moved away from Roscoe so that he would not hear his call to 1830. Fargo picked up spontaneously, as if the line had been left open. In the background, he could hear Gemma in the comms room. ‘She’s on the link,’ said Fargo. ‘What have you got?’

  ‘Target is the O2 Arena and the bomb is in a lorry.’

  ‘And how long do we have?’ said Gemma.

  ‘I’m working on it.’ There was a crash as Roscoe tipped from the desk onto the hard floor. ‘Al, I’m going there myself. Can you get me the external layout?’ he said, but Fargo was already calling into the room for everything on the O2, his Cornish voice calm and measured. Kerr could hear Gemma, too, making her report: ‘This is Gemma in SO15 comms with additional on the 11.06 Livebait to Greenwich…’

  In 1830, Fargo’s keyboard clattered as he made his own searches.

  ‘What’s on this weekend?’

  ‘Just scrolling the events page…there’s an equestrian thing till Sunday afternoon. Show jumping…dressage, exhibitions, fun rides for kids, etcetera. I’m guessing coaches and families from across Europe.’

  ‘Who’s organising it?’

  ‘It’s a European Union event, everything gold stars on blue. Hold on. Plus three, four logos from sponsors. Here you go. Funded by the EBF. European Banking Federation.’

  ‘So we have bomb and motive.’ Outside, Kerr heard Melanie skid the Alfa into the yard and swing round, the car’s shadow seeping under the door. He looked at Roscoe again, slumped on the hard floor, moaning in pain and spitting to clear his mouth. On a shelf behind the desk, he spotted a two litre bottle of white spirit. ‘I’m going to get more.’

  More shuffling and voices offstage, then Fargo again. ‘Thanks, Rosie…John, I’m pinging you the plans now.’

  ‘And I’ll touch base as soon as I’m there,’ said Kerr, cutting the call. He grabbed the bottle and splashed the turps around Roscoe, seeing his eyes widen with fear. By the time Melanie ducked beneath the door and held out his car keys, he was hosing water over Roscoe’s head and slapping his face to revive him. ‘I made a quick search of his van,’ she said, wrinkling her nose.

  ‘Any phones? Laptops?’

  ‘Nothing. What’s the plan?’

  Kerr switched the hose to refill the bottle. ‘We’re going to Greenwich. Help me get him to the car.’

  ‘John, he’s a prisoner,’ she said, looking doubtful.

  ‘He’s a bomber with a lot more to tell.’ According to Jack Langton, Melanie was the quickest driver on the Reds, so he closed her hand around the key fob. ‘How quickly can you get us there?’

  ‘Euston Road. Angel, Old Street, Aldgate,’ she said, knitting her brow. ‘Traffic’s light. Provided Commercial Road’s okay and the tunnel’s not blocked…how fast do you need?’

  He pulled Roscoe to his feet. ‘Like you’ve never driven before.’

  ‘Okay, but it’ll be bumpy in the back,’ she said, grabbing Roscoe’s arm, ‘and very noisy.’

  They half-carried, half-dragged Roscoe to the Alfa, grazing his bare feet on the stones. By the rear door he resisted again, so Kerr smashed his face against the edge of the roof and forced him behind the passenger seat. He darted back for the bottle of water, rolled the door shut and clambered behind Melanie. By the time he secured his seat belt Melanie was half a mile away, blue light flashing, siren howling, kicking down as she weaved east through the Saturday traffic and accelerated into clear road.

  The radio flicked automatically between two operational channels.
Jack Langton had already redeployed the Reds into a Starburst around Greenwich, and communicated on Tetra Channel Five, while Eighteen updated on the O2 evacuation. With agitation all around, the Alfa’s three occupants stayed more or less silent, Melanie at the peak of concentration, Roscoe slumped in his seat, and Kerr figuring how the next hour would play out.

  Less than four minutes later it was the dome of Madame Tussauds, not the O2, that sparked the connection in his brain. Screaming along the Marylebone Road past Baker Street, the siren bouncing off walls and windows, a shaft of sunshine against the famous green cupola drew him like a lodestar across the Atlantic to Rich Malone’s warning of an attack in London against ‘Corona.’ The source had been uncorroborated, the information in Spanish, second or third hand, the microphone coverage defective. This had been Washington protecting her interests by passing raw, sketchy intelligence to Kerr. The Americans called it ‘covering their ass,’ the Brits Rectum Defende, but it amounted to the same thing: disclosure followed by deniability, the dark art of intelligence exchange amongst allies. For Kerr, it had been the classic, substandard product people in his business managed every day, but now the target kept him steady as a rock as they hurtled east into Euston Road. Corona had been Rich’s genuine gift, one friend sharing with another: not a crown but a dome, a building; an iconic arena, nothing to do with Royalty.

  Both channels squawked non-stop. Monotone police voices repeated key words and elongated syllables for clarity, defying the bomb’s urgency. Melanie’s driving was faultless, the speedometer wavering between seventy and eighty on the straights, plummeting as she negotiated tailbacks and red lights, even murmuring the occasional apology. Buildings, vehicles and traffic jams swept past in a blur, yet Kerr’s brain coolly reprocessed the information from the past twelve days as they slid through the giant roundabout at Old Street and careered east towards Aldgate and Limehouse.

  He turned to the murderer holding the secret to the threat ahead. Roscoe’s face was a bloody mess, his left eye half-closed and nose evidently broken, lips shredded and swollen. Kerr grabbed his chin, forcing his head round. ‘Where did they leave it?’

  Roscoe fixed Kerr with his good eye, his face twisted with hate, so Kerr punched him again on the side of the head. ‘Who told you to hit the O2?’

  Then Channel Eighteen came through with a suspect lorry parked on the north side bordering the river, a six-wheeler with its hazard lights flashing. ‘Security now evacuating through south doors only. Estimate upwards of twelve, repeat twelve hundred people.’

  Kerr absorbed the information as they rocketed through east London, but his attention was on Roscoe’s face, suddenly split by a blood-drenched grin. ‘Wrong again.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ shouted Kerr.

  ‘Doesn’t matter, cos you’ll still be too fucking late,’ he grunted.

  They hit another straight stretch of road, Melanie accelerating above eighty as Kerr unclicked his belt and dragged Roscoe down, twisting to make room for him across the back seat. Roscoe’s feet kicked violently against the side window as Kerr clambered onto him, then ripped the blood-stained T-shirt over his face and head.

  His thighs stabilising him against Roscoe’s body, he told Melanie to steady the car. He poured water onto the shirt until the cloth saturated Roscoe’s airways, and watched the familiar result: inflation, inhalation, the bloody mask showing every outline of Roscoe’s face. They shot into Blackwall Tunnel, the curved walls maximising the siren’s wail, the blue light and headlamps strobing the semi-darkness as Roscoe began to drown again, cuffed hands rigid, his back arching so violently that Kerr’s head struck the roof.

  Kerr pulled away the T-shirt to watch Roscoe choke on his blood and vomit. ‘Tell me,’ he shouted, but Roscoe shook his head until Kerr hooded him again and poured more water. Roscoe’s fingers clawed at Kerr’s chest as they shot into the daylight. This time he tried to say something when Kerr desisted, but his voice was too weak to carry above the din.

  Kerr slapped him hard. ‘Louder. Say it again.’ They flashed past a series of giant posters with pictures of racehorses against the EU flag, then the gigantic masts of the Arena came into view and Kerr dragged Roscoe upright as he tried to speak again.

  ‘Not a lorry.’

  Kerr leant in close. ‘What, then?’

  Roscoe’s lungs worked frantically, sucking the atmosphere from the Alfa. ‘Horsebox,’ he croaked.

  ‘A horsebox? Where?’

  ‘Main entrance.’ He bent forward slightly to peer over Melanie’s shoulder as they careered round a tree-lined curve in the final sprint, and suddenly the Dome towered over them. Roscoe’s expression changed again, hatred and fear banished by panic as they drew beneath the target’s shadow. ‘You’re too late,’ he gasped. ‘Have to turn back.’

  Kerr followed Roscoe’s eyes to the dashboard clock: 11.48. Sixteen minutes since leaving Willesden. ‘Shit, he’s set it on the hour.’ He twisted Roscoe’s chin again. ‘It’s on for noon, isn’t it? What kind of timer? Memopark?’

  Roscoe nodded. ‘Can’t stop it. Nothing you can do,’ he panted, as Melanie skidded to a halt by the first car park. Cops were running everywhere with reels of tape and they saw five or six horses being led away to a patch of open ground near the station sign. Melanie pointed through the windscreen. ‘Over there. Is that it?’ Fifty paces away, parked in sunshine by the main entrance on the south side, was a grey horse box with its side door open. Alongside, bales of hay were piled haphazardly around a picnic table with flowers, a large wicker hamper and bottles of wine in coolers, the backdrop a giant poster of the Dordogne. Welcome to paradise.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Kerr, pulling himself forward on the back of the seat. ‘Couldn’t be worse.’ The area was a mass of visitors being directed across the path of the bomb, casual, good-humoured, jokily oblivious to the danger. Blue lights punctured the air, but none appeared to belong to a bomb disposal vehicle: if the explosives officers were already here, they had been sent to the wrong place.

  ‘We should radio it in, John.’

  Kerr watched the crowd walking towards them and checked the clock against his watch. ‘With a Memopark? Accurate to a couple of minutes?’ He turned to Roscoe, murderous. ‘You kept the warning vague to catch people getting away, didn’t you? Victoria, now Greenwich.’

  ‘You can’t go in there.’ Beneath Roscoe’s injuries, his skin had drained white, as if he had just choked away his last blood. ‘Please. All they told me is, this one’s a fucking monster.’

  ‘Did he leave the key in the ignition?’

  A shake of the head.

  Kerr peered ahead again. ‘How old is it?’

  ‘Ancient. Fourteen, fifteen years.’

  Another time check: 11.53. ‘Old enough to hotwire, Mel?’

  Melanie nodded and slipped the gears. ‘Couple of minutes.’

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ sobbed Roscoe as Melanie surged forward. She used the siren again, weaving through the evacuees and sliding to a halt by the horsebox as a bunch of local police yelled at them to get clear. Kerr’s door clicked open. ‘Stay here and watch him,’ he said, leaping from the car. He ran to the nearest cop, flashed his ID and demanded his baton. Pushing at a second officer, he whirled around like a crazy man. ‘It’s a bomb! Run! Bomb! Bomb!’ Three pairs of confused officers stared between him and Melanie in the Alfa, instinctively checking their Tasers, so Kerr held his ID high again and kept shouting until reality finally galvanised them into finding their own voices, herding, shoving, ordering everyone to run for their lives.

  Kerr beckoned Melanie, smashed the driver’s window with a single blow, pulled the door open and ran past her as she attacked the steering column. Struggling to get clear, Roscoe already had the Alfa door open, so Kerr helped him on his way, hauling him into the back of the horsebox and slamming the door as the engine coughed twice and spluttered to life. Kerr shifted a couple of the hay bales as he raced round the vehicle, still yelling with all his strength.
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  ‘Am I driving?’ said Melanie, but Kerr was already tugging her from the driver’s seat. He took off his jacket and handed over the Glock, then his BlackBerry. ‘Go.’ He leapt behind the wheel, spot-checked the cab for signs of the bomb and revved the engine. ‘I want you to help them get people clear, then come for me.’

  Melanie protested but Kerr had already rammed the gears into first. He found the hazard lights, sounded the horn and shot forward, knocking over the picnic table as he swung left. Scraping between a couple of posts, he accelerated hard to find himself on a wide gravel footpath, bordered by ornate lamp posts and blocks of modern apartments. To his left, the River Thames, deep and wide. Three minutes. A scattering of dog walkers gesticulating and, from the back, Roscoe hammering in desperation. Kerr stole another look for traces of the bomb, any battery, wire or plastic he could pull, dislodge or smash to make it safe: nothing. Submersion was his only chance and he raced along at twenty-five in third gear, searching for access to the river.

  The timber jetty appeared like a mirage as he swerved round a tree-lined curve. Rackety and dilapidated, half the length of a football pitch, it was blocked only by a wire mesh gate. Kerr strapped himself in and swerved across the neatly tended grass. Time remaining: zero.

  Wetsuits draped around their waists, a couple of young men were pulling a dinghy on a launching trolley across the access path so Kerr sounded the horn again as he rammed the accelerator to the floor. Just in time, the men leapt clear. Striking the dinghy a glancing blow, Kerr shielded his face as he smashed through the gate and rattled over the loose wooden joists, longing for the water to engulf him, mouth open in a full-throated roar as he breached the safety fence, took to the air and nosedived into the sluggish river.

  The seat belt saved Kerr’s body but jack-knifed his head against the windscreen as Roscoe crashed through the partition behind him, his head and shoulders trapped in the shattered plywood circle like a guilty man in the stocks. Stretched tightly around his throat was a necklace of three plastic bags filled with Semtex, the terrorist confronted by his bomb. The horsebox drifted downstream, time for Kerr to throw off his shoes and jacket as water gushed into the compartment and engulfed them. He snatched a final look at Roscoe, heaved his shoulder against the door, filled his lungs and slid into the river.