by Will Jordan
‘Are their hands on their weapons?’
‘Not that I can see.’
‘Then they’re just a foot patrol walking their regular beat,’ she decided. ‘Walk past them, carry on talking into the phone and don’t pay them any attention.’
‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ Alex hissed. ‘They’re not stupid. They’ll know something’s wrong.’
‘They pass hundreds of people just like you every day. They won’t stop you unless you give them a reason to, so calm down and keep walking.’
He was committed now anyway, he realized. He couldn’t turn around without making it look like he was deliberately avoiding them, and attempting to flee now would only make things worse. One way or another he had to tough it out.
Forcing himself to maintain what he believed to be a casual walking pace, he made his way reluctantly towards the two police officers. Every step was a conscious effort that became harder and harder every time, yet he forced himself to carry on.
As they drew closer, he couldn’t help noticing that they were both taller and bigger than him. In his panicky state they seemed to loom like giants before him, powerful and menacing, and watchful for the slightest hint of fear.
‘Yeah, I don’t know what you were playing at last night, Mike,’ Alex said, forcing terse joviality into his voice as he carried on an imaginary conversation with the phone. ‘Talk about letting the side down, mate. You were hammered even before the tequila shots started.’
The two officers could plainly hear the sirens from around the corner by now. Alex watched as one of them pointed and said something to his companion, their pace quickening. No doubt they sensed trouble and wanted to investigate for themselves.
They were getting close now, no more than fifteen yards between them, the distance closing fast now that both cops had speeded up. The only relief was that neither of them seemed to have noticed Alex. Their attention was firmly on the noise and commotion coming from around the corner.
‘What’s that, mate?’ Alex said into the phone, almost forgetting the ruse he was trying to maintain. ‘Yeah, there’s some trouble here by the sounds of things. Probably a couple of pissheads having a punch-up.’
Just ahead, a couple of gangly looking teenagers were standing outside a door leading into the communal stairwell for the apartment block towering above them. One of them had buzzed the intercom and was waiting for a reply, a plastic carrier bag bulging with cans of beer clutched in his hand. His friend spared the two police an unwelcoming glance, perhaps having had run-ins with them in the past.
Ten yards to go. Almost there.
It was then that Alex heard the crackle of a radio. A police radio. And from this distance, despite the static and the distant wail of sirens, he was able to make out the message with terrible clarity.
‘All units be advised, suspect on foot near Highfield Avenue. IC1 male, late twenties wearing jeans and dark hooded top. Possibly heading south.’
That was it.
In that instant, Alex knew he’d been discovered. Unable to help himself, he glanced up at the officer whose radio had just betrayed him, saw the dawning realisation in the man’s eyes as the pieces came together, saw him reach down for the pepper spray at his belt even as his mouth opened to shout a warning to his colleague.
It was then that something happened. To Alex’s left, there was an electronic buzz as the stairwell door was unlocked from one of the flats above. Eager to get in out of the cold and drizzle, the young man with the carrier bag reached out to open it.
Alex reacted on instinct, moving almost before he was aware of what was happening. Rushing forward, he threw his arm out and caught the youth square in the chest, knocking him backward. There was a startled shout as he stumbled and fell in the police officers’ path, slowing them down for a few precious moments.
Before his friend had time to react or the police untangled themselves from the makeshift obstacle, Alex had slipped in through the gap and pulled the door shut behind him. There was a faint click as the magnetic lock engaged once more, temporarily sealing him inside.
Desperate and breathing harder as adrenaline caused his heart rate to soar, he glanced around, taking in the empty concrete stairwell that smelled faintly of urine. He might have bought himself reprieve, but it was unlikely to last for long. Already he could hear boots hammering against the door, accompanied by muffled shouts.
‘I’m trapped,’ he said into the phone, hoping against hope that his mysterious guide might be able to help him. ‘The police rumbled me. I had no choice.’
‘Where are you?’
‘In a stairwell. One of the blocks facing onto the street.’
There was a pause as she considered this new development. ‘Is there another exit?’
Alex let out a breath. The only doors on this level led into the residents’ flats, and somehow he doubted they’d let him in. ‘Not on this floor.’
‘Then go up,’ she said, speaking with that same controlled, measured voice. ‘To the roof. Hurry.’
Alex was too frightened to question or protest. Doing his best to get more air in his lungs, he rushed up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Already the muscles in his legs were burning with the exertion, but he did his best to ignore it, concentrating only on putting more distance between himself and his pursuers.
The buzz of the door below told him the police had made entry. It wouldn’t take them long to figure out where he was heading.
His breath coming in painful gasps, he halted as he reached a security door at the very top of the stairwell, its bright yellow sign announcing that it was alarmed and to be used in emergencies only.
‘I’m here, but there’s an alarm on the door,’ he whispered.
‘Then you’ll have to move fast,’ she advised. ‘There should be a fire escape on one side of the roof. Find it and use it to get down to the street.’
Alex closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. Easy for her to say.
Wasting no more time, he shoved the door release bar and threw it open, rushing out onto the roof. As he’d expected, it was cluttered with TV aerials, satellite dishes and all kinds of vents and fans whose purpose he didn’t understand.
The rain was still falling steadily, having graduated from fine mist to heavy droplets that quickly soaked through his clothes. As the security alarm started wailing behind him, he looked around, desperately searching for the fire escape that would lead him back downstairs.
Sure enough, a retractable ladder was fixed to the edge of the roof opposite. Sprinting over, he shoved the phone into his pocket and bent down to inspect the device, trying to ignore the sickening feeling of vertigo that the sixty-foot drop provoked in him.
The ladder was set into metal runners drilled into the side of the building, and held in place by a simple mechanical latch. One good pull should be enough to release it, sending it all the way down to street level. The climb down wasn’t going to be fun, but even for Alex it was better than the alternative.
Reaching out, he grabbed the release handle and pulled.
Nothing happened.
Gritting his teeth, he braced one foot against the wall and pulled again, harder this time, his untested muscles straining with the effort. Still the latch remained stubbornly fixed in place.
‘Come on, you bastard!’ he yelled, booting it in frustration. ‘Why won’t you fucking move?’
The gritty rasp of corroded hinges provided its own answer. Years of exposure to wind and rain must have corroded its mechanism, rusting it firmly in place. Freeing it would take more time and strength than he had at his disposal.
‘Fuck!’
Breathing hard from his exertions and sweating despite the rain’s onslaught, Alex turned away and pulled the phone out of his pocket. The line was still active.
‘The ladder won’t move,’ he said, now struggling to keep the panic from his voice. He was acutely aware that every second he remained up here increased his chances of being caught. �
�It’s rusted solid. I can’t release it.’
He heard a muffled comment on the other end that he was sure was less than complimentary. To her credit, the woman quickly regained her composure.
‘Then you have to jump to the next building,’ she decided.
‘What!’
‘Another apartment block backs onto that one,’ she explained, her knowledge of his local area disconcertingly accurate. ‘The alley that runs between them can’t be more than seven or eight feet wide. Jump to the opposite roof, and use their stairwell to get down to the street.’
As she was speaking, Alex crept over to the edge of the roof, surveying the gap between his building and the next. As she had said, the distance between the two apartment blocks wasn’t much – probably not even wide enough to drive a car through – but at that moment it looked like a yawning chasm stretching out impossibly far before him. And leaning out, he caught a glimpse of rain-slicked brick walls stretching all the way down to a darkened litter-strewn alleyway far below.
For a moment, he saw an image of himself lying broken and dying in that dark alleyway, surrounded by rusted bins and trash, his body shattered by the crushing impact.
‘Fuck that!’ Alex hissed, backing away from the terrifying drop that awaited him if his leap of faith failed. ‘I’m a sales assistant, not Jason fucking Bourne!’
‘Alex, the police will have heard the alarm. They are probably on their way up to the roof as we speak.’ She was talking in the same calm yet commanding voice that had brought him this far, but now she was urging him to go one step further. ‘I know you’re afraid, but if you don’t act now, I can do nothing for you. Now trust me and jump!’
‘Shit!’ Shoving the phone in his pocket once more, Alex backed up several paces, his heart pounding and his breath now coming in shallow, rapid gasps.
Just one jump. One act of courage, one moment of danger, and he would be out of here. His guide, whoever she was, would find him and help him put this right. One day, years from now, he might even be able to look back on this night and laugh about it.
It was a fantasy and he knew it, but it was all he had at that moment.
‘Come on, Alex. Just get it done,’ he said, trying to psyche himself up, searching for some hidden reserve of courage and determination that he could draw on. ‘You can do this.’
One deep breath, and he started forward, running straight for the edge of the roof. The unforgiving brick walls of the opposite building loomed into view, the darkness, the horrific drop, the alleyway below...
It was over almost before it started. Skidding to a stop several feet short of the edge, Alex let out a cry of fear and dismay, and shrank away from the gap.
He couldn’t do it, and in some part of his mind he’d known even before he tried it. Whatever courage or madness was needed to make such a leap, he didn’t possess it. How could he? This wasn’t who he was; this wasn’t who he had ever been. He was a keyboard warrior, more used to employing his mind than his body. The prospect of physical injury or death had defeated him.
In any case, he was given little time to contemplate his failure. Before he could reach for his phone again, the door to the roof was thrown open and the two police officers spilled out. They weren’t armed, as few police officers in London were, but he did see them carrying riot batons and the distinctive yellow cylinders of pepper spray.
Caught in the open as he was, Alex was spotted by them immediately.
‘Police!’ the older of the two shouted. ‘Get down on the ground now!’
If Alex had any thoughts of resisting, they were quickly dispelled when the second officer moved around behind and shoved him roughly down onto the gravel-coated roof, applying plenty of pressure to make sure he couldn’t move. Alex groaned in pain as the sharp gravel cut his exposed skin.
‘Alex Yates, I’m arresting you on suspicion of conspiring to commit a terrorist act,’ the older of the two officers said as Alex’s hands were yanked roughly behind his back. A chill ran through him as a pair of handcuffs snapped over his wrists. ‘You do not have to say anything at this time, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something you later rely on in court.’
Alex took his advice and said nothing, knowing it was futile to respond. He was well and truly in the shit now. The only question was where it was going to end for him.
*
On the other side of the Atlantic in Langley, news of the arrest came through less than a minute later, relayed from British intelligence via the US embassy in London.
‘They got him,’ Santiago said, relieved that his guesswork seemed to have paid off. ‘Apparently Yates tried to make a run for it, but local police cornered him on a rooftop not far from the scene.’
Far from celebrating, however, Cain looked just as tense and unhappy as before. ‘Anyone else with him?’
‘No, sir. Just Yates, according to the report.’
The older man said nothing for a moment, the muscles in his jaw tightening. ‘Where is he now?’
‘En route to a local police station.’
‘I want him in our hands within the hour, no matter what shit the Brits try to give us. Get one of our field teams to that station right away, and make sure they have interrogation experience.’
Santiago hesitated, for a moment tempted to ask what this was all about, but immediately discounting the idea. Such things were far above his pay grade.
‘Do we have a problem, son?’ Cain asked, fixing him with that withering stare of his.
‘No, sir. No problem.’
*
In a darkened shop doorway about fifty yards down the street, Anya watched as Alex was led out to the waiting police car by the two arresting officers, his head down and his shoulders slumped in defeat.
People had drifted out of nearby residential buildings to find the source of the commotion and watch the drama unfold, including a group of drunken young men on their way home after a night out. A couple of them paused to shout jeering remarks at the prisoner as he was helped into the back seat of the car, before turning their attention back to their takeaway meals.
Anya clenched her fists, mastering her temper only with some difficulty. This man, weak and frightened though he might be, was her only link to the information she so desperately needed. Without him, everything she’d done so far would be for nothing.
He was sure to crack quickly under interrogation, and while she hadn’t told him anything that could compromise her, she also knew that his eventual confession would eliminate any chance of finding what she needed.
She hadn’t come this far to fail now.
Her only saving grace was that the Agency hadn’t yet become involved. The British police who had rushed to arrest Alex were certainly acting on their orders, no doubt under the guise of a joint operation against cyber terrorism, but it would take the Agency time to assemble a field team and a suitable place to interrogate him.
If she was going to do something, it would have to be soon.
Chapter 8
I should have made that jump. That’s all I could think about in the hours following my arrest. I should have gone for it, taken my chance and for once in my shitty, pointless life shown a bit of courage.
Who knows what might have happened? Maybe I could have saved myself a lot of pain and trouble, or maybe the end result would have been the same. I suppose I’ll never know.
They say you regret most of all the things you could have done, but didn’t.
Story of my life.
*
This was the end of the line.
This was where it was going to happen.
Alex was sitting bolt upright with his hands cuffed tight behind his back, his wrists throbbing in time to his pulse as the metal dug into his flesh. The wooden chair beneath him was hard and uncomfortable, while the cloth sack over his head submerged him in total darkness, robbing him of all sense of orientation and clinging to his face with every inhalation. Though he wasn’t bo
und to the chair, he dared not stand up, dared not move a muscle in fact.
It had been just under three hours since his feeble attempt to escape via the roof of that apartment block. He knew this because, with little else to do, he had been patiently counting out the seconds and minutes since his capture, measuring the passage of time for no other reason than to keep him from contemplating the fate that awaited him. He’d always been good with numbers, and even better at remembering.
The ride to the police station had lasted sixteen minutes, after which he’d been escorted to a cell and left there for another fifty-two minutes. Fifty-two minutes of sitting there with nothing but four cream-coloured brick walls for company.
No officer had come to charge him or take his statement. No rights had been read, no identification confirmed, no phone calls or legal advice offered. It was as if he’d simply been forgotten about, and for a brief time he had almost convinced himself that that was exactly what had happened.
Perhaps it was all a mistake. Perhaps they had tried and failed to find evidence of wrongdoing and were now debating what to do with him.
Perhaps…
It had been a desperate hope, and finally dashed when the door to his cell was thrown open and a trio of men in civilian clothes moved in, tied a cloth sack over his head and marched him right out of the station. They hadn’t said a word despite his attempts to communicate with them, to reason with them, to plead with them.
He’d been bundled into the back of a waiting van, which had departed the police station at a brisk but measured pace. Observing the speed limit, not wanting to get pulled over. There had been at least two men with him in the van, acting like a human vice to keep him pinned in his seat, though again neither of his captors had said a word. Each smelled of cologne and cigarette smoke.
An hour and forty-one minutes of strained silence had thus passed; enough to get well clear of London with almost no traffic on the roads at such an early hour.
