Sacred Stone of-2

by Clive Cussler

  “Teams four and five follow at a distance.”

  The Jaguar turned and a cab pulled from the side of the street and trailed at a safe distance. The Jaguar passed a small panel van marked with the logo of an overnight freight company a block down—the van pulled into the traffic and took up station a discreet distance behind.

  “The Jaguar was clean, the bomb was not in it,” Fleming said to Cabrillo, “so just where do you think Lababiti is going?”

  “He’s running,” Cabrillo said, “leaving the kid to do the man’s job.”

  “When should we move to intercept?” Fleming asked.

  “Let him get to his destination,” Cabrillo said. “The airport, the train terminal—wherever. Then tell your men to grab him. Just make sure he has no chance to make a call before they take him into custody.”

  “What then?” Fleming asked.

  “Have him brought back here,” Cabrillo said in a voice that chilled the already cold air. “We wouldn’t want him to miss the party.”

  “Brilliant,” Fleming said.

  “Let’s see how bad he’s ready to die for Allah,” Cabrillo said.

  THE CLOSER IT came to midnight the more the tension increased.

  The microphones at Lababiti’s apartment were picking up the sound of Amad praying aloud. Fleming was stationed in the hotel across the street with a dozen men from MI5. The three Corporation teams had been at their stations for just over thirteen hours. They were growing tired of the wait. Cabrillo was walking back and forth near Bedford Street; he’d passed the classic motorcycle dealership, a take-out curry restaurant and a small market hundreds of times as he paced back and forth.

  “We have to go in there,” one of the MI5 agents said to Fleming.

  “What if the bomb is a few blocks away,” Fleming said, “and someone else has started a delayed timer? Then we’ve missed it—and London burns. We wait—there is nothing else we can do.”

  Another MI5 agent walked into the lobby. “Sir,” he said to Fleming, “we now have twenty vehicles prowling the roads nearby. As soon as the principal climbs into whatever car he’s going to use, we can stop traffic in an instant.”

  “And the bomb experts are nearby, ready to move?”

  “Four British experts”—the man nodded—“a couple from the United States Air Force.”

  At that instant Amad’s praying stopped and the sound of him walking across the floor of the apartment came over the microphone.

  “We have movement,” Fleming said into the radio to the dozens of men in wait. “Do not move on him until he is at his final destination.”

  Fleming prayed it would soon be over. The time was 11:49 P.M.

  THERE WERE MI5 agents at the front, rear and all sides of the apartment building. Every car on the street had been tagged with a locator; each had an electronic disabling device attached. Each had been scanned with a Geiger counter and found to be clean.

  Everyone believed Amad would be driving to another location to retrieve the bomb.

  But the bomb was downstairs right now. It was resting in the sidecar attached to a Russian-made Ural motorcycle—just like the one Amad had trained on in Yemen.

  AS SOON AS the door to the apartment opened and Amad exited, an MI5 agent passed through the lobby and stared at the elevator button. It showed the elevator going to Lababiti’s floor, and then it started down. The elevator stopped on the second floor.

  The MI5 agent whispered the information over the radio, then quickly walked from the lobby. Everyone who was listening tensed up—the time was now and this was the place.

  THE FOOD AND beer and fun had not been diminished by the cold and scattered snow. The areas around Hyde and Green Parks were crowded with tens of thousands of holiday partygoers. Backstage, a liaison from MI5 was explaining to a rock star the cold reality.

  “You should have warned us,” his agent said loudly, “so we could have canceled.”

  “He explained that,” Elton John said. “That would have alerted the terrorists.”

  Dressed in a yellow sequined jumpsuit, jeweled sunglasses and black platform boots with lights in the soles, it would be easy to dismiss John as just another spoiled and overindulged musician used to a life of pampered elegance. The truth was far from that. Reginald Dwight had clawed his way up from a hardscrabble existence with strength, perseverance and decades of hard work. No one can dominate the pop charts for decade after decade if they’re not both tough and realistic. Elton John was a survivor.

  “The royal family has been evacuated, right?” he asked.

  “Come in here, Mr. Truitt,” the MI5 agent shouted outside the trailer.

  Truitt opened the door and stepped inside.

  “This is the stand-in for Prince Charles,” the agent said.

  John glanced at Truitt and grinned. “Looks just like him,” he said.

  “Sir,” Truitt said, “I want you to know we’re going to recover the bomb and disable it before anything happens. We appreciate you going along with this.”

  “I have faith in MI5,” John said.

  “He’s with MI5,” Truitt said. “I’m with a group named the Corporation.”

  “The Corporation?” John said. “What’s that?”

  “We’re private spies,” Truitt said.

  “Private spies,” John said, shaking his head, “imagine that. You guys any good?”

  “We have a one hundred percent success record.”

  John rose from his chair—it was time to go backstage. “Do me a favor,” he said, “give this one a hundred and ten percent.”

  Truitt nodded.

  John was at the door but he stopped. “Tell the cameraman not to do close-ups on Prince Charles—the bad guys might be watching.”

  “You’re going out there?” the agent asked incredulously.

  “Damn straight,” John said, “that’s a crowd of my countrymen and they came to see a show. Either these men”—he swept his hand at Truitt and the MI5 agent—“handle this problem, or I’m going out singing.”

  Truitt smiled and followed John out the door.

  THERE ARE SIX ways to enter a room. Four walls, the floor, or through the ceiling. Amad was using the latter. At the end of the second floor of Lababiti’s apartment building there was a utility closet. Two months prior, Lababiti had carefully sawed the four corners of the wood-planked floor and removed it, revealing the sub-floor. Then, using a two-foot-diameter round hole saw, he’d bored a hole into the lower shop. Between the sub-floor and the wood hatch above he’d hidden a rope ladder. After cleaning up the dust below, he retrieved the round section of floor and reattached it above with twin plates. Next he filled the edges around the wall in the closet with wood putty so it could not be detected. The hatch had been left alone until now.

  Amad opened the utility closet using a key Lababiti had copied.

  With the door open and the hallway empty, he pried off the hatch with a screwdriver. Setting the wood-planked section against the wall, Amad entered the closet and shut the door behind him. He took a pair of hooks from his pocket and screwed them into a wall, then attached the rope ladder. After removing the plates holding the round section of floor in place, Amad pulled it up into the closet and tossed it to the side.

  He dropped the ladder into the hole and climbed down.

  EVERY MI5 AGENT on the rooftops nearby had their scopes trained on the second floor.

  “Nothing,” they called in one by one.

  The MI5 agent who had walked through the lobby then out again reentered the building. Walking over to the elevator, he saw the indicator light still on number two.

  “Still on two,” he radioed to Fleming.

  In the hotel across the street, Fleming was staring at his watch. Four minutes had passed since the principal had stopped the elevator on the second floor. “Go up the stairs,” he ordered the agent.

  AMAD STARED AT his instructions written in Arabic, then flipped back the hinged panel over the arming mechanism. The symbols were
Cyrillic but his diagram was easy to follow. Amad turned a toggle switch up and an LED light began to flash. Turning a knob, he adjusted the time to five.

  Then he climbed on the Ural and kicked the engine to life. Once it started, he reached for a garage door opener duct-taped to the handlebars, and pushed the button. He shifted into first and was doing nearly ten miles an hour as the door rose six feet in the air and continued up.

  Everything began to happen at once.

  THE AGENT REACHED the second floor and reported it empty at the same instant the garage door began to open. “We have a door opening,” Fleming said into the radio as he raced through the lobby for the door.

  He was just at the inner glass doors when the motorcycle appeared and drove onto the street. Amad was at the corner crossing onto the Strand in a second.

  “The principal is on a motorcycle,” he shouted into the radio.

  The sharpshooters followed Amad, but he turned before the order to fire came.

  On the Strand, three taxis driven by MI5 agents heard the radio call. They pulled from the side of the street and tried to block the Ural. Amad swerved and took to the sidewalk to pass them, then angled back onto the road and twisted the throttle to the stops. Gaining speed, he swerved in and out of traffic like a madman.

  Ahead, a truck driven by an MI5 agent tried to block the road, but Amad squeezed past.

  They’re on to me, he thought. Now he just had to deliver the bomb to the chosen area or die trying. Either way, he’d be a martyr. Either way, London would burn.

  CABRILLO STARED DOWN the street and saw the vehicles from MI5 were being outfoxed. They had not planned on the principal using a motorcycle, and it threw a screw into the operation. There was only one thing to do—and Cabrillo did not hesitate.

  Yanking a newspaper rack off the sidewalk, he threw it through the window of the classic motorcycle dealership’s front window. The burglar alarm started blaring. Cabrillo climbed through the broken glass. The 1952 Vincent Black Shadow on display had the key in the ignition. Using his boot to clear the edges of glass from the frame, Cabrillo stomped on the kick start and the engine roared to life. He lifted the front end of the Vincent over the windowsill, clicked it into gear, and rode over the windowsill and down to the sidewalk.

  The Ural pulled abreast of the dealership then headed down the Strand.

  Cabrillo twisted the throttle and leapt in behind. The Ural was fast, but there is no motorcycle like a Black Shadow. If the Ural had not had a block head start, the Shadow would have caught him within seconds.

  “THE PRINCIPAL IS on a dark green motorcycle with a sidecar, he’s heading down the Strand,” Fleming shouted over the radio, “he has the bomb aboard. Repeat, the bomb is in the sidecar.”

  The Robinson with Adams and King took to the air. Near Trafalgar Station, Jones and Huxley drew their weapons and aimed down the road. Hundreds of people were milling about and they angled for a clear shot but could find none. In front of the War Cabinet Room, Murphy and Lincoln turned away from the Victoria Embankment and started sighting down on Hyde and Green Parks. On Piccadilly Street, Kasim and Ross separated and began covering both ends of the street.

  TRUITT WAS KEPT away from the others backstage until it was time to walk in front of the microphone. Stepping from foot to foot he waited.

  “It’s time,” John’s agent said.

  Truitt glanced over at the MI5 agent, but he was talking on the radio, so Truitt walked onto the stage and approached the microphone.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “could you please join me in welcoming in the New Year with England’s favorite musician, Sir Elton John.”

  The stage was dark except for Truitt. Then a spotlight appeared on Elton John sitting at an elevated piano. Still dressed in the yellow jumpsuit, his head was covered with a British army Kevlar field helmet.

  The introduction music for the song “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” started to play. A second later, John began to sing.

  Truitt walked off-stage and approached the MI5 agent.

  “He’s headed this way on a motorcycle,” the agent said.

  “I’m going into the crowd,” Truitt said.

  THE URAL RACED past Nelson’s Column with Cabrillo and the Vincent Black Shadow hot on its heels. Cabrillo wanted to open his coat so he could get to his shoulder holster, but he couldn’t take his hands off the handlebars to get at the weapon. Twisting the throttle, the Vincent shot ahead and came abreast of the Ural just as they passed Charing Cross. Huxley and Jones ran into the street and tried to line up shots as the two motorcycles passed, but Cabrillo was too close and the crowds too great.

  At the intersection of the Strand and Cockspur Street, Cabrillo pulled up next to the Ural and kicked at Amad with his boot. The Yemeni swerved but retained control.

  “They’re going straight down the Mall,” Jones shouted over the radio.

  Kasim and Ross started running down Queen’s Walk toward the concert.

  Murphy could become excitable, but with a sniper rifle in his hands he was always quite calm. Lincoln was spotting for him and scanned the parks in front. “The only clear shot through the trees is when they almost reach the Queen Victoria Memorial,” Lincoln said.

  “The street around the memorial runs clockwise, right?” Murphy said.

  “Correct,” Lincoln said.

  “I’ll plink the bastard as he slows for the turn—JFK style,” Murphy said.

  “I’ve got them,” Lincoln said, just catching the front end of the motorcycles.

  ADAMS MADE A left turn above the Old Admiralty Buildings and started down the Mall to the rear of the racing motorcycles.

  “Head and shoulders,” King said through the headset.

  “Shampoo?” Adams said.

  “No,” King said, “where I’m going to shoot this little shit.”

  He sighted in his scope and regulated his breathing. The cold wind through the open door of the helicopter was making his eyes tear, but King hardly noticed it at all.

  CABRILLO GLANCED AHEAD. There was a line of food vendors and booths ahead lining the circular drive where the Queen Victoria Memorial sat. They were nearing the edge of the concert grounds. He pulled alongside in preparation to leap over to the Ural.

  “FOUR, THREE, TWO, one,” Lincoln said.

  Murphy squeezed off a round at the same time King let loose a quick volley from the helicopter. Amad was almost to the circle when blood burst from his head, chest and shoulders. He was dead a second later, almost exactly the same time Cabrillo jumped from the Vincent across to the Ural. His hands grabbed a lifeless corpse.

  The Vincent hit the pavement in a shower of sparks and rolled end over end before stopping. Cabrillo tossed Amad to the ground; he bounced across the pavement like a crash dummy dropped off a table. Reaching for the clutch, he took the Ural out of gear and applied the brakes. The motorcycle rolled to a stop near the line of vendors.

  Cabrillo looked over at the timer. The countdown had just passed two minutes. He only hoped it was regular time and not metric time.

  Truitt had made all of twenty yards into the crowd when he realized the mask had to go. As Prince Charles, everyone wanted to touch him—once he’d peeled the mask off, people backed away.

  “Mr. Cabrillo has control of the bomb at the Queen Victoria Memorial,” Lincoln reported over the radio.

  Whooping sounds filled the air as the MI5 teams in the decoy cars attached their portable lights and sirens and raced toward the memorial. Blockers moved into place to stop traffic and an air-raid siren started to blare. Truitt ran across the road to Cabrillo just as he was snipping the wire.

  “She’s still active,” Cabrillo shouted as soon as he saw Truitt.

  Truitt glanced up quickly. There was a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream truck alongside the road. He ran over and opened the rear door. The attendant started to say something but in a second Truitt was in the rear. Grabbing a block of dry ice in his gloved hands, he ran back across the str
eet to where Cabrillo was rapidly taking apart the nose cone with a pair of Leatherman pliers.

  Cabrillo had just pulled back the panel when Truitt arrived.

  “Let’s try freezing the firing mechanism,” Truitt said.

  The timer was at one minute twelve.

  “Go,” Cabrillo yelled.

  Truitt’s gloves were frozen to the block of dry ice and he could not feel his hands. He tossed the block, gloves and all, onto the nose cone and then slid his gray hands under his armpits. The timer clicked a few more times then stopped cold.

  Cabrillo looked over at Truitt and smiled. “I’m surprised that worked,” he said.

  “Necessity,” Truitt said through gritted teeth, “is the mother of invention.”

  Cabrillo nodded and reached for the voice microphone at his throat. “I need the bomb guys at the Queen Victoria Memorial ASAP.”

  Fireworks erupted over the park and throughout London as the New Year came.

  Two minutes later a car pulled up and a British officer climbed out. Soon another car arrived containing an expert from the U.S. Air Force. Five minutes later the two men had the firing mechanism removed and stowed. Now the bomb was just a housing for an orb of enriched uranium.

  Its heart was ripped from its body, and with it went the life force that could bring death.

  WHILE THE BOMB experts were rendering the device inert, Cabrillo and Truitt walked over to Amad’s body, which was lying in a pool of blood on the pavement. The radio had reported that Lababiti had been detained and was now being brought back to London by helicopter. Elton John was still singing and the sound filled the air. The scene around the motorcycle was being cordoned off by British military and intelligence officials, and most at the concert were unaware of what had happened.

  “Nothing but a kid,” Cabrillo said, looking down.

  Truitt nodded.

  “Let’s get you to the medic to look at your hands.”

  Kasim and Ross, who had arrived a few minutes after the timer was stopped, were wheeling the smashed Black Shadow over toward Cabrillo. The classic motorcycle was a mess. The tanks and side panels were scratched, the handlebars bent and one tire was flat. A perfect specimen of motorcycle history had been destroyed. Cabrillo looked at the motorcycle and shook his head.