Red Notice

by Andy McNab

  He dropped back into the gloom.

  Laszlo strode up to her, ordering his men to jump down from the train. He seized her by the hair, lifted her head and jerked it back. She arched her back, trying to ease the burning pain in her scalp. She looked into his lifeless eyes and, for the first time in her life, felt pure and uncontrollable fear.

  ‘Someone attacked us. They took the kids.’ Delphine flinched, expecting him to hit her. But just as quickly, the fear changed to something else. It started to feel liberating. She had no control over the madman standing over her. No matter what she did or said, there was no guarantee he would react as she wanted him to. So what was the point in being scared? All she could do now was cling to any chance she was offered to save herself and the children.

  ‘You lying bitch.’ Laszlo’s expression darkened, and then the blow came. He raised his arm and backhanded her across the face.

  Delphine tasted the metallic tang of blood. ‘Am I lying about the cuts?’ She tried to match his stare. ‘Do you think this is makeup?’

  Laszlo’s fingers tightened in her hair and he dragged and kicked her out of the doorway towards the toilet cubicle. She saw the hole in the floor and the empty 9mm cases scattered around it. He inched forward, his feet making no sound, and peered down through the hole. He was suddenly, dangerously, still. Delphine knew what he’d seen: the guard they’d dispatched to escort her and the children, stone dead, his swollen tongue protruding grotesquely from his mouth.

  Laszlo betrayed no emotion. The man had been there to fight and, if necessary, to give his life for their cause. What was he supposed to feel? Compassion? Regret? Those luxuries could be afforded only by the comfortable, complacent middle classes of the West. Laszlo had no doubt that he would rather have died in that way than in the squalor of whatever pig-shit village he had come from.

  He turned his ice-cold glare back to the woman. She was defiant, this one. He could see the fear in every fibre of her being, but he could not see compliance. Or understanding. Like every one of her kind, she couldn’t comprehend why men chose to fight and die. Maybe these people had spent too long sitting in front of their 44-inch flat-screens, phoning for pizza delivery, knowing the state was always there to feed them if their funds ran dry. Maybe they just had too much to live for.

  Laszlo heard Sambor’s hurried footsteps and stepped back into the corridor.

  ‘The guy we sent to sort out the radio – he’s dead.’

  Again, Laszlo’s reaction was no more dramatic than it would have been if his brother had announced that a bulb had blown and needed replacing. He shrugged and pointed out into the darkness. ‘There is just one man out there. And the children will slow him down.’

  He wasn’t too fussed if this man had contact with the world outside or not. ‘Come, brother – we have more important things to do.’

  Laszlo started to head back up the train, then, almost as an afterthought, waved a hand in the direction of the woman. ‘Bring her.’

  Sambor grabbed the bitch’s hair and pulled her to her feet, indifferent to the blood welling from her scalp and starting to dribble down her cheek.

  62

  GAVIN RAISED HIS binoculars and stood in front of the hangar, taking in the lie of the land. He scanned the terminal, the rail tracks and the throng of hi-vis jackets that marked the inner police cordon around the tunnel entrance. He checked his mobile, still hoping that Tom was alive and capable of letting them know at some point what the fuck was happening.

  Gavin had as much information as he needed on the tunnel’s layout, and was pretty sure he knew why they had no radio comms with the train. Laszlo had had no reason to cut them. Why would he, halfway through a conversation? And the design team had assured him the system was fire- and flood-proof . . .

  He was suddenly aware of puzzled glances from the nearest of the guys in hi-vis vests, and realized they must have seen his shoulders shake, possibly even heard him laugh.

  The design team reckoned they’d thought of everything. But they hadn’t met Tom Buckingham.

  He gave them a grin and stepped into the building.

  As the situation developed, Gavin’s boys would be free to roam the hangar, check out the latest content on the boards, ask questions and listen in to the radio traffic between Woolf and Laszlo, and from the call-signs on the ground. Every single member of Blue team would need to know exactly what was happening, when, how and why.

  Gavin gave the heli pilot the nod, and he did the sensible thing – got some tea brewing and talked squash with one of the signallers while they waited for the assault group to arrive.

  Woolf sat at his rapidly constructed desk, headphones and boom mic already in place, mobile stuck under one of the cans to keep him linked with COBRA. As he listened to the committee going round in an endless series of circles, his bored expression told Gavin all he needed to know about progress in Whitehall.

  Woolf had met Clements on a number of occasions under the SAD lighting and hadn’t liked him from the get-go. Woolf was a self-made man. He’d left school at sixteen to work in Coventry’s MG factory as a trainee upholsterer, but soon learned that he should have thought about university instead of following his parents, who both worked in the same plant. His trainee salary had gone to finance night school, and eventually a University of East Anglia BA in philosophy, politics, economics, Adnam’s bitter and one-night stands. It had come as a complete surprise when he was approached by the Security Service. They asked if he would keep an eye on a group of fellow students who were developing unhealthily romantic leanings towards Irish nationalism – which they feared might turn into support for the Provisional IRA. He had turned out to be so good at this task that MI5 had offered him a full-time job before graduation.

  Clements trumpeted himself as a champion of social mobility, but only for public consumption. He’d congratulated Woolf on his first COBRA appearance, but privately believed that people like him were made for reasonably effective middle management, that the real power should be left in the hands of those who’d had the upbringing and education to know how to use it. Woolf had read his body language loud and clear within the first minute of that first meeting, which was why he was more than pleased to be in the holding area today, doing the job he was paid to do, rather than pissing around in a Westminster bunker.

  ‘Right.’ The signaller tapped on Woolf’s can and motioned for him to lift it. ‘We’ll establish a universal power-line bus and set it to private protocols. You’re jacked into the train with either device. All channels are open to you and London.’

  Woolf felt his brow furrow as he tried and failed to decipher the geek-speak. He was glad to see Gavin come back over to the briefing area. ‘How much longer till the rest of your crew get here?’

  Gavin checked the wall screen that displayed the satellite tracking of each of the call-signs driving from Hereford: two clusters of vehicles, Blue just over the Dartford Bridge, and Red hitting the M4 at junction fifteen. ‘Another thirty minutes.’

  ‘Let’s hope we have some contact with the train – or Buckingham – by then.’ Woolf kept his volume low, but he couldn’t disguise his growing anxiety. ‘If there have been more casualties, London will send you in immediately. There’ll be no negotiation.’

  Gavin shared his concern. That was the worst option: there would almost certainly be high casualties within the team, and the Yankees would be at the sharp end of it all. Emergency response, almost inevitably, tended to do pretty much what it said on the tin. All he could do right now was issue a set of orders based on what he knew – and that was precious little more than what the train looked like, how it worked and where it was located.

  Gavin shook his head. ‘Well, if Laszlo does make contact you’d better get your finger out of your arse and persuade him to give himself up. For fuck’s sake, you lads are supposed to be able to sell sand to the Arabs, aren’t you? Get the fucker to come out of his hole and have a brew with us.’

  Woolf sighed, replaced hi
s mobile and headset, and listened again to the Whitehall debate.

  The pilot returned with a steaming paper cup. Gavin nursed it as he worked out how the team would respond if they were given control in less than forty-five minutes’ time. From time to time, he checked his mobile for a signal and that he hadn’t accidentally switched it to silent.

  63

  TOM’S HANDS WERE clamped hard over the children’s mouths. The slightest sniff or whimper would betray them.

  The two men sent to hunt them down had jumped off in different directions, but within a few paces had called out to each other and regrouped no more than five metres from where Tom, Rose and Daniel lay.

  Tom heard a muttered exchange. If they got any closer, it would be decision time. Could he hope to be taken prisoner? Not a chance. He’d just killed two of their mates. He could roll out the other side of the train and try to make a run for it, but these guys were unlikely to shoot and miss. He didn’t want to leave the kids, and he didn’t want to leave Delphine . . .

  Tom put his mouth right up against Rose’s ear and almost breathed his instruction. ‘Don’t move. Not a sound.’ He repeated the process with Daniel. They both nodded, wide-eyed.

  He removed his hands from their mouths and felt around beneath him. His hand closed around a piece of rubble the size of a squash ball. He moved to the far side of the train, eased himself into a semi-crouch, and pulled up his sleeve so the material wouldn’t flap. He drew back his arm.

  He unleashed the missile and it flew down towards the UK end of the tunnel. He couldn’t see where it landed, but knew it was about thirty metres beyond the gunmen. The moment they heard the noise, they turned and broke into a run.

  64

  LIKE THE HOLDING area, COBRA was in waiting mode. Someone had suggested that police officers could move into the tunnel and try to establish communications. Alderson had managed to shoot that one down in flames. He’d explained that without tactical support from Hereford to deal with the situation if it went wrong – which was massively likely – it could bring about more civilian deaths.

  Sarah Garvey looked at the screen that monitored the progress of the teams to Folkestone, using the same feed as the holding area. ‘Mr Alderson, how long now?’

  ‘Ten minutes, Home Secretary.’

  Her eyes were still fixed on the two fast-moving clusters of call-signs. ‘I want to know what’s happening in that bloody tunnel. I want to know if this lunatic has killed any more passengers, and precisely what those explosions were. Can we not get the CCTV back online? Surely there must be something we can do . . .’

  ‘If I may, Home Secretary . . .?’ Clements leaned forward and lowered his voice to a confidential murmur in a crude effort to conceal from Brookdale what he was about to say. ‘We could simply agree to Antonov’s financial demands, and his request for safe passage.’

  ‘You’re not serious?’ The home secretary’s confusion was clear for all to see. One minute he wanted Antonov dead, the next . . . ‘You’re suggesting we let him go free? Over my dead body. We’d be a global laughing stock. And so would our long-held policy of zero negotiation.’

  Clements lifted a hand. ‘I don’t mean that we actually let him escape. I mean we placate him by apparently giving in to his demands, but only up to the point when the SAS can enter the tunnel or do whatever they need to do to kill him and put this matter to rest.’

  Drawn to Clements’s lowered voice, like a vulture to road-kill, Brookdale intervened: ‘Surely it would be wiser to take our time and negotiate a surrender. Keep this the responsibility of the police and MI5. The military option bothers me, and particularly the possibility of it going wrong. What about casualties? I don’t care about the military, of course – that’s what they’re there for. It’s the collateral damage that will impact badly on the government.’

  Both Sarah and Clements knew who he really meant.

  Brookdale tried to manoeuvre between them. ‘Sarah, the net immigration figures should be published tomorrow. If you recall, we thought we’d smuggle them out on a Friday afternoon once everyone had returned to their constituencies, but I recommended we pull publication after yesterday’s cock-up.

  ‘I thought it would be best to wait and see where Antonov cropped up next before breaking the news. The numbers do show a most unwelcome increase, and if they were to be announced alongside the revelation that a dangerous foreign terrorist had both entered and left the United Kingdom without being intercepted by our security forces . . .’ he paused, enjoying the limelight ‘. . . well, the opposition wouldn’t be slow to link the two things in a way that would be politically very damaging. They’re already sniffing around, so we need to keep this situation under what control we can. No heroics, no Men in Black and things that go bang. That will do the government a great deal of harm. Negotiated settlement, lots of saved civilians, does us all a power of good.’

  His eyes still fixed on Sarah Garvey, Clements shook his head. ‘With respect, Home Secretary, that is not a realistic option. Antonov will never surrender, and you’ll have a situation on your hands that is exactly the opposite of what government wants.’

  He treated Brookdale to a full measure of his disdain. His message was simple: he should be leaving this to the grown-ups. ‘Young man, Antonov – and whoever he has down there with him – is a different breed, a world away from what you have ever dealt with. He doesn’t care who won The X Factor, or which celebrity is shagging her brother-in-law. He has never tasted sun-dried tomatoes on focaccia. In short, you know nothing, so I suggest you say nothing.’

  He turned back to the person who mattered. ‘Home Secretary, no matter what we think of Antonov, we must understand him. He will not surrender so, as I keep suggesting, it would be cleaner if he were killed. If he’s cornered, he won’t hesitate to take as many people with him as he can. And he may well have enough explosives down there to take down the tunnel as well. Just think of the financial implications, quite aside from the PR own goal.

  ‘Let’s get him out of that tunnel and kill him at the first available opportunity, and live with whatever collateral damage we have to.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to suggest, Mr Clements. Any more collateral damage might include my political future.’

  Back on familiar ground, Brookdale waited one beat too long before jumping in: ‘And that of this government.’

  Clements ignored him – he was just background noise. ‘Then with respect, Home Secretary, that’s all the more reason to act decisively now. As soon as we have regained communications, let us bring him out into the open and settle this quickly.’

  She gave him a baleful stare, then glanced at Brookdale. But the head of communications had suddenly developed shoulders like a Coca-Cola bottle. This would have nothing to do with him. Unless, of course, it was a success.

  65

  THE INSTANT THE two gunmen had started running, Tom pulled the children out from under the train, dashed about twenty paces in the opposite direction, then dived back beneath the nearest carriage. Rose and Daniel followed him under. For a moment they clung to each other, like survivors of a shipwreck.

  Tom waited for their laboured breathing to subside. He strained to hear any hint of their pursuers’ return. After two minutes, he motioned to the kids to get into crawling mode and continue up the track on their hands and knees.

  As they moved closer to the engine, he turned and signalled for them to keep silent. He pointed into the darkness and mimed gunfire: the PKM (belt-fed Kalashnikov machine-gun) position was out there somewhere and he didn’t want to go any further forward. The kids had seen enough dead bodies for one day.

  He knew the two guys manning the gun position would be wearing their NVGs to defeat the pitch-darkness of the tunnel ahead of them. He knew they’d be scanning in all directions. And he knew what it would be like behind those masks. All they’d be able to hear was their own breathing, and the gentle whine as the small lithium battery kept the NVGs active.

  He gu
ided Rose and Daniel out from under the train and through the mangled green metal door. There were shouts from the other end of the tunnel – no more than weak echoes when they reached them, but Tom still paused momentarily to comfort the kids and keep them as quiet as he could. Soon all other noises were drowned by the sound of something like rainfall, damping down everything but the sickly sweet smell of charred flesh. Tom soon discovered the reason why.

  The first thing he saw through the gaping hole that Laszlo’s explosives had blown in the fire screen was an incinerated appliance. The back blast from the detonation must have ignited the wagons. The last of the flames had clearly died long since, but only now were the sprinklers beginning to shut down.

  The second thing he saw was a steel ladder, bolted to the wall immediately to his right, leading up to an open hatch, through which he could see wavering torchlight. He ducked back out again. They had to keep moving.

  ‘Cover your mouths. The smoke will soon be gone, the further along this tunnel we go.’ He hoisted Daniel onto his shoulders and grabbed Rose’s hand. ‘Come on, kids. Time to go and find you some sunlight.’

  66

  THEY DRAGGED THE French girl, bruised and bleeding from her scalp, mouth and wrists, along the carriages and threw her to the floor in front of Laszlo.

  Sambor nudged her with the toe of his boot, like a curious child with a dead bird. ‘Seems their super-hero is still alive after all,’ he grunted.

  ‘Are you sure it’s the same man?’ Laszlo thought for a minute. ‘Brother, we have to solve this little problem very quickly indeed, because we’ll be facing another much bigger one before long.’

  ‘But the SAS shouldn’t even be in Folkestone yet . . .’

  ‘All the more reason to deal with this man while we still can.’ He knelt down beside the girl. ‘And she is the key that opens the door to him . . .’ He took hold of her hair and yanked her head back far enough to stare into her eyes. He switched from Russian to French. ‘I think it is now time for you to tell me the truth. I need to know exactly what happened back there.’