The Armageddon Protocol (A Harry Bane Thriller)

by Rob Jones

  He felt his heart sink as he realized he was already doubting those around him – even Leo – how much did he really know about any of these people? No, now he was being paranoid and it had to stop. You had to trust someone in this world and those he had shared this nightmare with had risked their lives to help him.

  His mind raced with crazed thoughts as he fixed his eyes back on Szabo. The contempt he felt for the man standing a few yards ahead of him was almost overwhelming… he could almost taste the hatred he felt on his tongue. He knew Szabo had to face justice, but now the truth in what Andrej had said meant there was no hope of a fair trial. The truth was Szabo would be out of the country and living on some private island somewhere under a new name in hours while the public would be fed lies about his sad and untimely death.

  There was only one way Harry could know for sure that a creature like Zalan Szabo wouldn’t live to pursue the Ministry’s insane agenda, and that was to end things permanently, now.

  And yet it wasn’t that simple. Harry was no cold-blooded killer. He’d killed in the line of duty both during his time in the Pathfinders and while working overseas as an undercover agent for the SIS, but they were state-sanctioned executions. If he took out Szabo now it would be nothing more than murder, and he would be no better than the very evil he was committed to fighting.

  Szabo stared at him and an icy grin broke out on his wrinkled face. It was as if he could read his mind, and Harry’s blood ran cold when he stared back into those dark, slate eyes.

  “Don’t come any closer or I’ll activate the nanodust.”

  Harry raised his gun. “Not with a bullet in your head, you won’t. Now take your hands away from the laptop and raise them in the air, nice and slowly.”

  Szabo remained perfectly still. “No.”

  “I’ll aim to kill, Szabo. You know I will.”

  “But I have a much better idea. Why don’t you lower your guns or I will activate the protocol? My finger is less than one inch from the button. Even if you shoot me dead here and now you will not be able to stop the canister dispersing the dust. There is no way you can get to it in time.”

  Harry’s face dropped.

  “What?” Szabo said with a grin. “You thought we would be stupid enough to keep the nanodust here with us at the launch center?”

  Harry’s mind raced with scenarios.

  “It seems the misinformation I gave that fool Tóth has paid a dividend. You will never locate it in a city of this size…”

  “Enough of this!” Baupin yelled, and raised his Glock. He fired once, striking Steiner in the upper leg. The Austrian screamed in pain and fired back, causing everyone to dive for cover.

  From behind Szabo’s drinks cabinet, Harry fired back with his gun and blew out part of Szabo’s window wall. At nearly one thousand feet above London, the late December wind rushed in through the gaping hole and drove sleet into the apartment.

  Szabo screamed orders at Steiner and Ruiz and a moment later the Austrian hurled a short-fuse grenade at Harry’s side of the suite. They rolled away hard as the device detonated behind a grand piano and blasted pieces of the Steinway all over the room.

  Fire took hold of the velvet drapes and crawled into the plush pile and within a few short seconds their half of the penthouse suite was ablaze.

  In the heat, smoke and confusion, Szabo slipped away with his underlings while Harry and the others struggled to breath in the burning apartment.

  “I’m not digging the fire, Harry,” Niko said. “If it takes off we might find ourselves stuck up here.”

  “That’s not going to happen – listen.”

  Below they heard the sound of sirens, and Niko peered down through the smashed window to see several Mercedes Benz Ategos belonging to the London Fire Brigade racing toward the base of the tower.

  “Something tells me their ladders aren’t three hundred meters long,” Niko said.

  “They’re on it, Niko,” Harry said firmly, “and we’re on this, so focus.”

  Lucia gasped. “What was that?”

  “What?” Harry said.

  “I saw something over there!”

  Harry turned to see shadows flitting out of sight in a circular staircase that led up to a mezzanine. Behind the rail he saw the unmistakable sight of two burnished chrome elevator doors sliding shut. “That must go up to the viewing platform,” he said. “He’s going to try and activate the launch from the observation deck at the top of the building.”

  “So we’ll follow them up.”

  Above their heads, the sprinklers burst into life but the fire was too powerful and they barely touched the blaze. Harry led the others away from the flames and over to the bottom of the circular staircase on the other side of the suite.

  “Something tells me this elevator is on a one-way journey and it’s not coming back down for us or anyone else.”

  “He’s right,” Leo said. “They’ll shoot the control panel when they get to the top and disable the lift.”

  “We have to get after them!” Baupin yelled.

  “But he said the dust isn’t here,” Lucia called back, the wind whipping her hair across her face.

  “He’s probably just lying his ass off,” Zoey said.

  “No,” Harry said. “He’s not lying. He’s right – we were stupid to think they would concentrate everything in one place so close to the end of their mission.”

  “What’s the difference?” Zoey said. “If we stop the launch it doesn’t matter where it is.”

  “They’ll have a contingency in place,” Maja said. “I know these people. If the launch fails they’re not just going to give up the dust.”

  “So where do we start?” Lucia said.

  “Wait,” Niko said. “You remember that hideous painting in his ski lodge?”

  “Ördög?” Harry said.

  “Right.”

  Lucia shuddered. “Don’t remind me.”

  “Tóth told us he was the old Hungarian god of the Underworld, right?”

  “Sure,” Zoey said. “Some kind of demonic, shape-shifting monster who created all the bad things in the world.”

  Harry frowned. “What’s the point, Niko?”

  “Do you remember I told you I’d seen that word before?”

  “Yes.”

  Zoey raised her hand to protect herself from the flames at the other end of the apartment. “We have to get out of here right now, so get on with it Nikky!”

  “Now I remember where – it’s the name of the company that’s delivering the fireworks at this year’s New Year’s Eve display in London. Ördög Industries – they’re the pyrotechnic company in charge.”

  Harry nodded. “I think you might be onto something, but they have several different launch sites all around the Thames.”

  Niko grinned. “But don’t you remember what he said about the devil’s eye? Remember – everything to people like Szabo has symbolic significance.”

  “Oh my God!” Harry said. “The canisters are fixed to the London Eye. They’re going to use the fireworks to blast the dust all over the sky and then control it from here.”

  “Bastards,” Leo said. “There are tens of thousands of people gathered around it ready for midnight.”

  Lucia locked her anxious eyes on his. “But what’s the Eye?”

  “The Millennium Wheel,” Harry said, already calculating how long it would take to get there. “They call it a cantilevered observation wheel, but to the rest of us it’s the enormous Ferris wheel on the South Bank.”

  “Five hundred metres from here, max,” Leo said, already stuffing his gun into the inside pocket of his jacket. “I can be there in less than ten minutes – how long have we got?”

  Harry sighed. “Midnight is just a few minutes away, Leo… there’s no time to waste. With Rook and his men down you’re going to need some backup.”

  “I’m going with him!” Zoey said.

  “Me too,” said Maja.

  Leo looked at the two women and then bac
k to Harry. “Why do bad things happen to good people, Harry?”

  “Piss off, Leo,” Harry said and watched his old friend, Zoey and Maja sprint through the billowing smoke and vanish from the apartment.

  “What about us?” Lucia said.

  Niko and Alain Baupin looked at the Englishman waiting for his lead.

  Harry picked up a discarded MP5, checked its magazine, and pointed its muzzle to the ceiling. “We’re going up there, to the very top.”

  FORTY

  In the lobby, Harry, Lucia, Niko and Baupin made their way into what the Shard authorities called the ‘optional elevator’ – the one that went all the way to the top of the enormous skyscraper.

  The Englishman stared at the control panel – they were on Floor 65 now, 68 was the sky boutique and first viewing platform, 69 was the main viewing platform and 72 was the open viewing platform. The elevator serviced two other floors – 75 and 78 but both were marked No Access and were disabled to the public.

  “He must have gone to 72,” Lucia said. “The open viewing platform.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right.” Harry pushed the button for the seventy-second floor and seconds later they had arrived. When they doors opened they found themselves in a small hallway with a sign indicating that the open viewing platform was up a small flight of stairs to their right.

  Harry and the others raced up the final few steps and when they reached the top they were met by an immediate rush of freezing air and then the amazing sight of London’s night-time skyscape stretching out to the horizon in every direction.

  The viewing platform at the top of the Shard was the highest in Western Europe and gave a breathtaking view over the entire capital, but the platform itself was almost as impressive, like some kind of glass and steel cathedral tower twisting up above their heads and pointing up into the London night.

  Harry scanned the platform. Szabo and Ruiz were in the far corner, but Hans Steiner had taken up a defensive position behind a steel support girder closer to the elevators and was now aiming his gun at them.

  “Get back!” he yelled.

  “Drop the gun, Steiner!” Baupin yelled. “You’re cornered now and you’re wounded. There’s no way out.”

  “Never.”

  “He’s right, Steiner,” Harry said. “You have nowhere to run now… none of you.”

  Baupin fired at Steiner, and struck him once again in the leg. The Austrian grunted in pain but didn’t flinch.

  “Looks like you’ve got blood on your Hans, Szabo!” Harry called out.

  Lucia rolled her eyes, but across the platform Szabo made no reply.

  Harry knew if he wanted to get to them and stop the launch he had to go through Steiner, but the former Jagdkommando wasn’t giving anything away. This was a man who had been shot twice in the same leg and was still standing. Now, without warning he fired his submachine gun at them and sent Harry and the others flying back into the stairwell for cover.

  The Englishman belly-crawled forward out of the stairwell to get a clear view of Steiner but the Austrian peppered the deck with flying lead. Harry rolled over several times to avoid the rounds until he ended up on his back in the center of the platform.

  Completely in the open now he swung the MP5 around, pointed it through the gap in his knees and fired across the platform as he wriggled back toward the stairwell. The force of the recoil made the powerful machine pistol reverberate in his hands as he sprayed Steiner’s part of the viewing platform with nine mil bullets.

  Steiner fired back but the pain from the wounds in his leg distracted him and disrupted his concentration. His aim was high and the first bullets drilled up into the gaping, rainy sky above their heads. The Austrian retreated to another pillar closer to his boss and his next shot was better, striking the glass and steel just above Harry’s head. A flurry of smashed glass and steel sparks rained down over him as he tried to track the fleeing Austrian’s progress back along the platform, but then the former Jagdkommando’s final bullets struck Baupin in the arm and the Frenchman collapsed in the corner.

  “Alain!” Harry yelled.

  “Forget me… stop them!”

  Steiner made the decision to make a break for it and retreat all the way back to his boss in the far corner of the rain-streaked platform. He turned on his heel and tried to sprint, but his wounded leg gave way and a loud snapping sound cracked in the wind as it howled through the angular glass walls towering above them.

  Harry fired at him but missed and blasted out the glass screen behind him. The air rushed into the platform as it had done in Szabo’s apartment far below, and now Steiner cried out in pain and collapsed to the floor. The cries turned to grunts as he clutched at the leg with the broken bone, but he found the will to raise submachine gun as Harry sprinted toward him for the final round.

  The Englishman pounded across the platform with his MP5 raised in the aim and never once took his eyes off the wounded beast now sprawled out before him. He reached Steiner and booted his submachine gun off the side of the platform through the hole he had blasted with the MP5, ending the Austrian’s only chance of survival once and for good.

  In the far corner of the platform, Ruiz drew his gun and stood in front of Szabo, creating yet another defensive barrier between Harry and the insanity of the Armageddon Protocol. Harry glanced at Lucia and Niko, both taking cover in the stairwell and knew neither of them was trained to handle a man like Ruiz. A few meters away Alain Baupin was slumped against the wall with his head nodded down on his chest – probably unconscious because of the blood loss.

  Harry knew it all came down to him, and time was running out.

  “You failed, Englishman!” Steiner screamed, his blonde hair flying around in the icy wind.

  “Not yet, I haven’t,” Harry said, “Now get up!”

  Steiner began to laugh crazily, and shake his head. “You are going to kill me?”

  “Kill you? Nah – you’re not important enough. You’re going spend the next fifty years in Belmarsh. I imagine an Austrian terrorist who tried to kill millions of Londoners is not exactly going to have a laugh there, but you never know.”

  Steiner crawled up to his knees and screamed in pain as the weight went back onto the bone that Baupin’s bullet had smashed to pieces.

  As he screamed, Harry was surprised and shocked to see Lucia and Niko lunge forward and rush Ruiz from different directions. It was a daring plan, and the bravery required to attack an armed enemy was substantial. A mix of pride and fear for their lives rushed through him.

  In the dark and swirling rain, Ruiz fired at Lucia but missed, giving Niko the chance he needed to launch himself at the CNI man and force him to the ground. The gun went off twice more, its muzzle flashing orange and white in the night, and then Lucia charged back into the fray.

  Harry lost sight of the brawl across the other side of the platform, and then he paid heavily for his concern for his friends.

  Steiner moved with incredible speed for a wounded man, and the next thing Harry knew he was on his back. The Austrian clambered over him and brought a heavy power punch down into the Englishman’s face.

  Harry’s world spun for a few seconds but he was still too dazed to react when he felt the Jagdkommando heaving him toward the hole in the shattered glass at the edge of the viewing platform. As he slowly regained full consciousness he felt the concrete riveted floor of the platform fall away as Steiner pushed him over the edge.

  The former MI6 man felt the blood rush to his head as he began to slip upside down, and had to look up in order to see the ground looming beneath him. Then he heard more shots from Ruiz’s gun at the other end of the platform.

  “You will reach terminal velocity in seconds,” Steiner said. “From one military man to another, it brings me no joy to say they will need a mop and bucket to clean you up.”

  Everything was falling apart. The adrenalin pumped through his veins and his head spun with emotion. Had Leo and the others secured the canister? Had Ruiz gunne
d down his friends? The icy wind drove the rain into him and it stung his face as he looked down at the lights on the ground and saw the fire trucks and police vehicles far below.

  Over one thousand feet below.

  FORTY-ONE

  Leo Hilton weaved through the bustling crowd on the South Bank, his eyes transfixed on the London Eye. Either side of him were Zoey Conway and Maja Eklund, two women he had only known minutes but both more than capable of watching his back.

  As they drew nearer, the Eye glowed a ghostly blue in the powerful spotlights. Everywhere he looked he saw excited people holding hands and pointing into the sky. Some were drinking and all were smiling. They thought tonight was just about fun, but Leo knew otherwise.

  As he pounded along the Queen’s Walk, he saw two boats from the Met’s Marine Policing Unit closing in fast, moving upstream from Waterloo Bridge. They knew about the threat and were blocking off any potential escape routes along the water.

  At the base of the Eye now, Leo flashed his ID at two policewomen and they waved him through.

  “That’s Karhu right there!” Zoey said, pointing at a tall man in the crowd. “Dressed like security.”

  Leo followed her arm and saw a man among a small group of riggers. He was standing around the cabin containing the pyrotechnic firing system on the embankment not far from the base of the Ferris wheel. “Jesus… Harry could have told me I’d be fighting a professional wrestler.”

  Leo approached the security team and flashed his old MI5 badge. “We need to cut the power to the display that’s going to be launched from the Eye.”

  The man gave a weary sigh. “We can’t just cut the power, mate. These took days to set up. You sure that ID’s up to date?”