by L J Morris
Lancaster stopped and took off his glasses. ‘I’m Colonel Lancaster. I’m a consultant at another clinic and I’m covering for Doctor Standish. He’s not well.’
Thomson walked straight past the guard towards the doorway. The guard took a step towards her. ‘Stop right there, I need your ID, too.’
Thomson held up a photo ID that she had taken off Deborah. The guard was too far away to make out the details and was about to tell her to bring it closer, but Thomson gave him a frustrated look. ‘How many times do you want me to show you this?’ She pointed towards the nurses station. ‘I’ve been sitting there all night.’ Her face broke into a smile. ‘Or are you just trying to chat me up? If you want my number, love, just ask for it.’
The guard looked embarrassed. He was sure he would have remembered the nurse, though she did look kind of familiar. Hell, it was the middle of the night and he was tired, he’d probably just missed her. ‘Okay, go ahead.’ He looked back at Lancaster. ‘I’ll still need to see your ID.’
Thomson walked into the room. She smiled at the guard sitting in the corner and started to check the Prime Minister’s pulse. The guard sat up and put down the book he was reading. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.’
Thomson smiled. ‘I’ve been on holiday. First day back and I pull a night shift, lucky me.’
The guard relaxed. ‘Me too. I’ve been fighting to stay awake.’ He nodded at the sleeping Prime Minister. ‘Do you think he’d notice if I put the TV on?’
Thomson was checking the PM’s chart. ‘They’ve got him sedated. I don’t think he’s going to be waking up until the morning.’
‘Maybe just for a little while then.’ The guard switched on the TV and turned down the volume.
Thomson was pulling at a lever at the foot of the bed. ‘Could you give me a hand with this? I need to adjust the bed.’
‘Sure, no problem.’ The guard stepped over to stand beside Thomson. She looked past him into the corridor, where Lancaster was still looking for his ID. Lancaster nodded.
Thomson placed the barrel of her weapon on the side of the guard’s head. ‘Don’t move, love. I wouldn’t want to shoot you by accident.’
At the same time, Lancaster reached inside his white coat and pulled out his own pistol, pointing it at the other guard’s forehead. ‘Hands behind your head, don’t even twitch.’ He disarmed the guard and walked him into the room.
Thomson and Lancaster tied the guards to two chairs and switched on all the lights. Carter entered the room and looked at the Prime Minister. ‘We’ve got to wake him up. We don’t have much time.’
Chapter 51
Two of the Royal Navy’s newest nuclear-powered submarines hovered a few metres below the surface of the eastern Mediterranean. The periscope of one of the Astute Class boats broke the surface and turned towards its target. The steel structure was barely visible above the waves as it scanned the horizon, gathering information and looking for potential threats.
Below the surface, in the A-Boat’s control room, the captain and his XO watched the screen that showed the image from the periscope. The sun was setting and lights began to flicker along the horizon. They knew that, in a few hours, if the situation didn’t change, they would receive the order from Whitehall to launch the first of the Tomahawk cruise missiles that would devastate the area they were looking at.
The implications weren’t lost on the submarine’s captain. Commander Graham Teal had been in command of the vessel since before it had come out of build in the shipyard in Barrow. He was due to move on in a few months – he was being promoted and moved up the food chain – a desk job beckoned. This was likely to be his last deployment, his first in an actual hot war.
His crew had trained for months to carry out this exact role. They had taken part in exercises and practice missile firings, but this was different. By this time tomorrow, they would have unleashed the massive power of the submarine against people who wouldn’t see it coming. People who had no way of stopping it, who had no influence on their government’s decisions.
Teal looked at the screen again. He could make out vehicles, moving along the coastal road, probably locals going home after work. At dawn tomorrow, they wouldn’t have to worry about work – their homes and offices would be reduced to piles of rubble. All they would have to worry about was surviving. The decision to launch wasn’t his, that would be made back in London. He didn’t envy those people, but he did trust them to make the right choice. He left the control room and went back to his cabin.
* * *
Mick Butler’s team were back in the command and control vehicle, making final preparations for the assault. Various equipment was laid out on the tables: CS gas and stun grenades; sub-machine guns and sidearms, with spare magazines; respirators; radios and ear pieces. Everything they would need to make the operation a success.
The team members checked every piece of kit before stowing it in a particular pouch or pocket attached to their body armour. They checked their weapons last. Each one had a full magazine slotted in, but they weren’t cocked, that wouldn’t be done until the last minute. They would only arm their weapons when they were needed – when they were about to go in.
Butler was still uneasy about this job but he couldn’t let that concern him. Once they were given the go-ahead, all he had to think about was the safety of the hostage and the safety of his men. Whatever was going to happen to Sinclair and McGill was in their own hands. The outcome depended on what they did.
* * *
The attendees of the COBRA Committee had begun to arrive at four o’clock. The deadline for Turkey to respond was at five o’clock, and they needed to be available to make the decision to begin military action. They also had to deal with the ongoing situation in Cumbria. The meeting had the feeling of a full war cabinet.
The Chief of the Defence Staff kicked off the meeting. ‘Do we know if the Home Secretary is joining us?’
One of the junior ministers shook her head. ‘I was asked to pass on his apologies. His doctor has told him to rest, but he will be phoning in around four thirty.’
‘Thank you for that. Let’s get started.’
The screens at the end of the room showed various twenty-four-hour news channels. Most of the attendees had laptops open and lines of communication had been set up in preparation to issue out the order to strike. Gold command were connected via video link and were currently giving an update.
‘We’ve still had no communication from inside the house. If we are going to breach, I have been advised that the time to do it is now. They will be at a low ebb and easier to surprise.’
‘Thank you, Commissioner. The Home Secretary is now on the line. Good morning, sir, were you able to hear gold command’s briefing?’
‘Yes. Thank you, General.’
‘Sir, we have been advised by special forces that the optimum time to enter the house is just before dawn. Can you confirm your approval to deploy?’
There was a pause. ‘It has become obvious that these people have no intention of negotiating. We cannot risk the release of more nerve agent. Therefore, I reluctantly confirm my authorisation to deploy special forces to bring this siege to an end.’
‘Thank you, sir. Confirm authorisation to deploy special forces.’
The commissioner at gold command looked at the camera and nodded. ‘Authorisation confirmed.’ The video feed cut off.
Chapter 52
Thomson was looking at the PM’s file. ‘According to this, he is fully awake and aware during the day. They are sedating him at night as he is struggling to sleep.’
Carter shook his head. ‘Just our luck. Normally you can’t stop politicians from talking, we get the only one who won’t even wake up.’
Thomson took out a hypodermic needle and injected its contents into the Prime Minister’s drip. ‘Should only take a few minutes.’
Carter looked at Lancaster and back to Thomson. ‘What did you just give him?’
Thomson l
ooked at the needle. ‘You don’t want to know, Simeon. An old trick, I thought it might come in handy.’
As they spoke, the PM opened his eyes. Thomson pressed a button on the bed and raised the end of it so he was sitting up. ‘Good morning, sir.’
The PM looked out of the window. ‘Are you sure it’s morning?’
‘There are a couple of men here who need to speak with you, it’s urgent.’
Thomson stood back and Lancaster stepped up to the bed. The PM was still a little drowsy and his eyes hadn’t focused properly. He blinked and squinted at Lancaster. ‘Edward? Is that you? I haven’t seen you for ages.’
‘It’s good to see you again, sir. I’m glad you’re recovering well.’
The PM looked at the two guards who were tied to their chairs. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was in trouble.’
Lancaster beckoned Carter to the bed. ‘This is Simeon Carter, he’s an old friend of mine. He was a spook in East Berlin during the Cold War. You can trust him, sir. You need to listen carefully to everything he says.’
* * *
Mick Butler’s team gathered at the bottom of the track and readied their weapons. ‘Right, lads. We’ve had the go-ahead. Everything just as we planned.’
They looked up the hill, only half of it was visible. The thick fog had descended to cover the whole area; the house was completely shrouded in mist and couldn’t be seen from any vantage point.
Butler put in his radio earpiece and checked comms. ‘We’re being told that visibility up there is down to five metres. If we set off any of McGill’s booby traps, we have to keep going. It’ll tip him off that we’re coming, but I imagine he knows already.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Time now is zero four thirty, we need to be in position at zero four forty-five, we go five minutes later. Ready?’
The men nodded.
The team split into two: four men climbed the hill from each side. They already knew the main track was rigged, and assumed the back was, too. The sides were the least likely to give them away.
DS Gardner watched the black-clad figures set off but soon lost sight of them. She looked around for her boss, DCS Thorpe should be there, but there was no sign of him. With special forces about to assault the building, the man who was supposed to be in charge was nowhere to be seen. She didn’t like the way things were going, there had been something wrong with all of this from the start. She held up her phone and pressed the call button.
* * *
Carter told the Prime Minister everything. He went right back to the start: how he’d been recruited by Lancaster and how Sinclair and McGill were involved; he went through the events with Bazarov on the island and how they had stopped it.
The Prime Minister listened carefully, he had been told about Bazarov but had been led to believe it was the Americans who had brought him down. ‘Let me get this straight; Sinclair and McGill basically saved all of us, and we let them take her back to prison?’
Lancaster stepped forward. ‘We did everything we could but it wasn’t enough. I’ll always be ashamed of that, she didn’t deserve the way she was treated.’
Carter nodded. ‘We all owe both of them a lot.’
The Prime Minister sat forward and adjusted his pillows. He was obviously tired. ‘These events are somehow linked to a conspiracy within my government.’
Carter carried on. He told the PM about Sinclair’s unmasking of the Home Secretary as Vadim, and the extent of the conspiracy. He showed him some of the evidence from the folder, which Kinsella had sent to his phone. Lancaster would probably lose his job after this, but that didn’t matter right now, they had to stop everything.
The PM was incredulous. He looked at Lancaster. ‘This all sounds so implausible. How could something like this go on under the noses of our security services?’
Lancaster took over. ‘There are a lot of people involved, Prime Minister, as Simeon has said, some are at the highest level. They’ve had people assassinated, and carried out the attack in Geneva and the shootings in Westminster. The security services are just following the orders that are coming down the line. They don’t even suspect these people.’
‘What do they want, Edward? Is this all about being in power?’
‘Partly, sir. This organisation dates back to the Cold War. The people who set it up believed in the old Soviet Union, they want to see it resurrected as a global super power, that’s why they’re trying to destabilise NATO.’
The PM looked at Carter. ‘But that’s not all they want, is it?’
Carter shook his head. ‘No, sir. If it was, it would be easier to predict, easier to deal with, just like it was back then.’
Lancaster turned up the volume on the TV. The BBC reporter was standing outside number 10 Downing Street. ‘There has still been no confirmation that the Turkish have responded to the government’s request for information on the terrorist attacks. If no response is forthcoming, by the deadline of five o’clock GMT, it is expected that UK troops will, once again, be sent into action. Back to the studio.’
The PM watched the breaking news that scrolled along the bottom of the screen as the news anchor went through other stories. British troops had been mobilised, Russian troops had amassed on the Syrian-Turkish border, and US forces were preparing to respond to any Russian reaction.
Lancaster pointed at the screen. ‘These people sit at the head of government organisations, as well as major corporations. In short, Prime Minister, war is good for their business.’
‘I’m out of action for a few weeks and the whole world’s gone mad. What time is it?’
Lancaster looked at his watch. ‘It’s four thirty.’
‘Get me a phone, there’s still time.’
* * *
Butler’s half of the team had almost reached the barn when they triggered the flares. McGill had strung more fishing wire right around the approach to the building and rigged it to a chain of emergency flares. The bright white light destroyed Butler’s night vision and meant that he and his team had to wait before carrying on. That was exactly what McGill had planned.
Inside the house, McGill saw the flares light up the image on one of his cameras. ‘They’re coming, Ali. Get ready.’
Sinclair opened the metal box and pulled out one of the assault rifles, she slotted in a magazine and chambered a round. ‘Frank.’
McGill took the assault rifle and spare magazines that Sinclair passed to him, and went to the window to wait for the SAS teams to arrive. ‘We won’t have long. Once they’re in position at the entrances, it’ll be less than a minute until they blow the doors.’
Sinclair loaded the other assault rifle. ‘I guess this means Simeon didn’t succeed.’
‘It was always a long shot, we’re up against powerful people, they always seem to win.’
Sinclair joined him at the window, out of Hadley’s earshot. ‘This is it then. This is where we go out swingin’.’
McGill looked at the screen. ‘There is a chance; there could be a way for us to get out and disappear.’
‘Whatever you’re planning, Frank, I’m in. If they won’t believe us about Vadim, we’ll just leave them to it. Leave them to their power games. What are you thinking?’
McGill looked out of the window. ‘This fog is really thick, I can’t even see the barn. If we wait until they appear at the door, we could leg it for the tunnel and make it out of here. They won’t be able to see us.’
‘What do you think our chances are?’
‘If we’re in here when they blow the doors, they’ll kill us. If we get caught out in the open, they’ll probably kill us. In this fog? Maybe we sneak away.’
Sinclair squeezed McGill’s forearm. ‘Sounds like a plan, let’s do it. I’m not scared to die, but I’d rather not.’
Chapter 53
The COBRA committee members all stopped to look at the desk phone that was ringing at the far end of the room. People didn’t usually dial in to meetings like this, and it definitely wasn’t normal to re
ceive a call from an unknown number.
The Chief of the Defence Staff pressed the answer button. ‘Hello?’
The voice on the other end of the line sounded a little weak and was made tinny by the phone’s loudspeaker. ‘Good morning, General.’
The faces around the table looked shocked, they all recognised the voice. The general leaned forward towards the phone. ‘Prime Minister?’
‘Yes, General, how are you this morning?’
There was a buzz around the room. Everyone looked genuinely relieved to hear his voice. Not just relief that a man who most of them respected had recovered enough to call them, but relief that they would now get some actual leadership.
The junior ministers were keen but completely out of their depth. The military and senior police figures were uneasy at making such monumental decisions for the country. The Home Secretary was leading them in name only. He was missing meetings, and, when he did turn up, his behaviour was worrying, bizarre, even. Although they had spoken to him for authorisation earlier, no one actually knew where he was. With the deadline approaching, and military action imminent, he should be sitting in that meeting.
The general reached out and turned up the volume on the phone. ‘It’s good to hear from you, sir. I’m glad you’re well enough to join us. Are you aware of the situation we are currently facing?’
‘I’m aware of the overall situation, General, but I am also in possession of some information that the committee and Parliament have not been party to.’
Everyone member of the committee was now leaning forward. ‘Is it something you can share with us, sir?’
‘Not on this line, General, not yet.’
‘Understood, sir, what is it you want us to do?’
The line went quiet, they could hear low voices in the background, like a TV. ‘In light of the information I have, we need to step back, General. We need to reassess our position. I want all military units to stand down immediately. We need to contact our allies and advise them of this change in our position.’
