The Kill Zone

by Chris Ryan

  There was no need to make contact with the skipper: Jack knew that the vessel’s regular captain would have been replaced by a professional. Their priority now was to keep out of sight until they got the go order. And that was out of his hands.

  The boat started moving, surprisingly quickly, up the river towards the centre of London.

  17.40 hrs.

  From his vantage point in the control tower, Sean Barclay watched the slick choreography of a presidential arrival. Air Force One had barely come to a halt before the RAF ground crew had pushed the steps up to the plane and a group of people – Sean assumed that the President was in the middle of them, but he couldn’t see his face no matter how hard he peered – swept down to the waiting helicopters.

  The middle of the three aircraft was designated Marine One. Once the entourage had boarded, however, all three rose into the air at the same time. Sean watched them carefully. They were barely thirty metres in the air before they performed a swift, skilful switch: Marine One swapped with the aircraft to its right, while the third rose above the other two before sandwiching itself between them. He remembered a game his great-uncle used to play with him when he was a kid: the old man would put a fifty-pence piece under one of three cups, then slide the cups around in a steady but confusing pattern. If Sean managed to locate the fifty pence, he was allowed to keep it. He never did.

  He felt like that now – bemused as the three helicopters continued to rise out of sight, realising that he had already lost track of which one carried the world’s most powerful man.

  And then they were gone.

  Air Force One taxied over to another part of the airfield to be refuelled. Sean shrugged. He was obliged to remain here for the rest of the evening, but there would be no more flights into RAF Northolt tonight.

  ‘Excitement’s over for one day,’ he muttered to himself as he prepared for the boring hours ahead . . .

  18.00 hrs.

  ‘He’s moving again!’

  The two red circles on the map in the Thames House operations room had faded away. Colley stared at it, waiting for Khan’s location to reappear.

  ‘Three masts!’ Jackie called. ‘We’ve got three masts!’

  As she spoke, three red circles appeared on the map. The area of intersection was concentrated firmly on the river between Westminster and Waterloo Bridge, and the blue kill zone had moved west, its boundary just touching Westminster Bridge.

  ‘Alert Hereford,’ Colley instructed. ‘Let the dive teams know we’ve narrowed it down. What’s the satellite imagery telling us? Can we identify Khan’s boat? Can we tell which way he’s moving?’

  A tense pause.

  ‘Negative, sir. There’s too much river traffic – we have sixty-three vessels in the area. It could be any of them.’

  ‘Shit,’ Colley muttered.

  The DG spoke up. ‘Where’s the President now?’

  A voice from the other end of the room: ‘Limousine One has just left Buckingham Palace. Estimated time to Westminster seven minutes.’

  ‘Damn it!’ Daniels shouted. ‘Damn it!’

  The DG fumed and started pacing round the ops room. He felt entirely helpless, and it wasn’t a feeling he liked. And he was so hung up in his own panic that he didn’t notice Dave Colley walk out, fingering his mobile phone.

  18.02 hrs.

  Jack remained hunkered down, hidden behind the containers on the cargo vessel that was transporting him along the river. A voice in his earpiece. Hereford ops room. ‘Target’s location between Westminster and Waterloo Bridge. Do you copy?’

  ‘Copy that,’ Jack replied. ‘Do you have a precise fix?’

  ‘Negative. They’re working on it, Jack.’

  Then they’d better work on it a bit harder, Jack thought, as the cargo vessel continued to course downstream.

  18.03 hrs.

  The block of caesium-137 was encased in lead. Three wires protruded from the lead casing, leading to a complicated mess of more wires and plastic explosive. All this within a metal flight case whose lid was now open and which was sitting on a table within the cabin of the Guinevere – an old, unassuming boat with a blue hull and white cabin, part of the busy river traffic approaching Westminster Bridge, which was thirty metres away, and counting.

  Habib Khan looked down on the device, and his eyes shone.

  On the right-hand side of the explosives was an unassuming metal lever. It was in the up position, and Khan could not help allowing his hand to hover above it. The hand, he noticed, was shaking slightly. That was to be expected, he told himself. Everything for which he had worked for so long – so long – was on the verge of fruition.

  Next to the flight case was a phone. Its large screen displayed a website and at the top of the page were the words PRESIDENTIAL VISIT: LIVE TEXT UPDATES. Khan’s eyes scanned the most recent update. THE PRESIDENTIAL MOTORCADE IS MOVING SLOWLY UP BIRDCAGE WALK . . .

  He smiled. Only a few more minutes. Give the President time to reach Parliament and then . . .

  He looked up. The skipper of the boat – a young Middle Eastern man with a full beard and greased-back hair – had his back to him and was concentrating on steering the vehicle towards their location.

  ‘You are ready?’ he asked. ‘You are ready to give your life for the Prophet?’

  The skipper looked over his shoulder. Like Khan, he had fervour in his brown eyes. ‘I am ready,’ he said in a clear voice. ‘God willing, they will not find us before the time is right. God willing, we will not fail.’

  An enigmatic look crossed Khan’s face. ‘We will not fail,’ he said quietly. ‘It is impossible.’

  He turned his attention back to the device while the boat continued to drift upriver. It was almost as an afterthought that he switched off his phone.

  18.05 hrs.

  Brad Joseph stood on a balcony at the corner of the Houses of Parliament. From here, he could see diagonally across Parliament Square, which was now cordoned off and lined with police as they waited for the President to arrive. He didn’t mind admitting to himself that it gave him a good feeling to see the brisk efficiency with which the whole operation was playing out. He took a deep breath as he drank in the pleasant sight of the evening sun on the green-leaved trees of the square; and he felt a small thrill as, at the furthest corner, the first sight of the presidential motorcade – two police outriders in luminous yellow jackets – came into view.

  And then his cellphone rang.

  Brad looked at his screen, then frowned. Dave Colley. What the hell did he want?

  He clicked a button and answered the call.

  18.06 hrs.

  David Colley stood in the corridor outside the ops room, his phone pressed to his ear. Brad’s American drawl came on to the line. ‘Dave, what can I do you for?’

  ‘We never had this conversation, Brad.’

  A pause.

  ‘What you got for me, Dave?’

  Colley took a deep breath. If word of what he was about to do got out to anyone, his job was history. But if he didn’t, history could change anyway. Sometimes, you just had to do the right thing . . .

  ‘Get your man out of London. Evacuate him now. We’ve got some nutter planning a spectacular and the PM’s got his head in the sand. We haven’t got a handle on it and the shit’s about to hit.’

  Another pause. And then . . .

  ‘Thank you, Dave.’

  Brad hung up just as Dave Colley slumped against a wall. In the back of his mind he considered getting the hell out of there, vacating the area himself, but he soon vetoed that thought. He knew where his duty lay, and that was here in the basement of Thames House.

  He straightened himself up and returned to the operations room.

  18.07 hrs.

  Brad Joseph didn’t hesitate for a second. In the far corner of Parliament Square, the nose of the Beast, flying two miniature Union Jacks on its bonnet, as was the tradition, was just peeping into view.

  He raised his wrist to his mouth and spo
ke clearly into his microphone. ‘We got a Category One alert. Evacuate the President now. REPEAT – EVACUATE THE PRESIDENT NOW!’

  When David Colley returned to the ops room, everything was in chaos. The DG was framed by the enlarged map of London, but its three pulsating circles had disappeared and there was a wild look in his eyes. He barked at him across the room. ‘We’ve lost the signal. The motorcade’s turning round. What’s happening? The PM’s going to shit on us from a height. Damn it, Colley! What’s happening?’

  Colley ignored him, because just as the DG was losing it in front of half of Five’s operational staff, Jackie was striding up to him. ‘Sir,’ she said sharply. ‘I think we’ve got him.’

  28

  Colley blinked, then quickly followed Jackie back to her station where she had satellite images on two separate screens. She pointed at the left-hand one. ‘This was taken fifteen minutes ago and covers the area Khan’s phone was transmitting from.’ She moved her attention to the right-hand screen. ‘This was taken two minutes ago, just before we lost the signal. There’s only two vessels that appear in both images. One’s a covert police boat. The other one’s this.’ She clicked a button on her keyboard, and a blurred, grainy, bird’s-eye image appeared.

  Colley felt his mouth go dry. ‘Have we . . .’

  ‘Police teams on the bank are scoping it now, sir. As soon as they have a description and a—’

  She stopped, held up one finger and listened into her headset.

  ‘Vessel’s name is Guinevere,’ she reported. ‘It’s moved away from the traffic flow and come to a halt ten metres south of Westminster Bridge. Details are being relayed to the dive team now.’

  They looked at each other. Both of them knew that they’d done everything they could. It was out of their hands now.

  Hidden among the multicoloured cargo boxes, Jack couldn’t tell which part of the river they had reached. All he knew was that the boat was beginning to slow down.

  Suddenly his earpiece burst into life. ‘We have a fix. Repeat, we have a fix.’

  Jack raised a hand and caught the attention of the rest of the team, but they’d heard the communication too and had already turned to look at him.

  The vessel was practically still now. Further instructions over the comms. ‘Dive team, on my command enter the water to starboard. Approach at a bearing of two hundred and fifty degrees. Allowing for the movement of the current you should reach the target in approximately one hundred and twenty-five seconds. The vessel is named Guinevere, blue freeboard, white cabin. We have eyes on – two crew in the cabin. Do you copy?’

  Jack looked around at his team. They all gave the thumbs-up. ‘Copy that,’ he replied.

  ‘Entry in sixty seconds. Repeat, entry in sixty seconds. The President is being evacuated to Northolt, repeat, Marine One is about to fly.’

  The team was already moving, emerging from their covert positions behind the cargo units. If the instruction was to enter the water to starboard, that meant the target vessel was stationed to port side. They could submerge themselves without being seen.

  ‘T minus forty seconds.’

  Along with the others, Jack attended to his swim board, setting the thick, black rotational dial to a bearing of 250 degrees and illuminating the backlight. Up here, you couldn’t tell the difference. Underwater, it would be like a beacon leading him onwards.

  Leading him to Khan.

  ‘When we get there,’ he told the unit, ‘Khan’s mine.’

  ‘T minus twenty seconds.’ The vessel was still moving, but very slowly now. Jack switched his timer to count 120 seconds, then the eight of them crouched by the edge of the platform, facing inwards. Jack checked that his dive helmet and rebreather were properly fitted, and that his weapons were properly attached to his person.

  ‘T minus five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One. Go! Go! Go!’

  Jack tumbled backwards, and he sensed the others doing the same.

  A splash.

  Darkness.

  He felt his body righting itself in the water. Everything around him was murky. Dark. Visibility, one to two metres, max. Jack knew the others were around him, but he couldn’t fully make them out – they were like shadows in the twilight. His eyes sought out the glowing compass of the swim board that he now held out in front of him. He was on a bearing of 100 degrees, so he spun his body round until he was facing the right direction.

  He turned on the timer. And then he started kicking his flippers. Steadily. Rhythmically.

  Habib Khan, he told himself, was only metres away.

  The Beast roared back up Birdcage Walk. The police outriders had their sirens blaring and the President’s counter-attack team stood sentinel by their 4 x 4s, MP5s on full display as they surveyed the surrounding area with grim, implacable faces.

  The gates to Buckingham Palace were already wide open, and the motorcade sped through it, swinging round the side of the great building and hurtling towards the three waiting helicopters, whose blades were already spinning in preparation for the off. The Beast skidded to a halt, but the doors didn’t open until members of the CAT team surrounded the limousine and formed a protective corridor between the rear door and the nearest of the three choppers. One of the CAT team opened the back door of the limo and, without even the pretence of presidential reverence, yelled at the top of his voice. ‘Into the chopper! Get into the chopper! Now!’

  A figure emerged – tall, lanky almost, with short hair and dark skin. His head bowed, he ran towards the helicopter and jumped up into Marine One, quickly followed by two of his guards.

  The door slammed shut. In a moment of perfect choreography, all three choppers rose into the air at precisely the same time. They were no higher than the top of Buckingham Palace when they performed their intricate switching. Moments later, they did it again. Only someone who had seen the President enter his chopper and had then carefully watched the switching pattern would know which aircraft contained him, and by the time the three helis had started moving north-west across London, it was impossible to say which was Marine One, and which were the decoys.

  Jack’s timer counted down in the gloom. Three seconds.

  Two seconds.

  One.

  Suddenly, up ahead, there was the hull of a vessel. He swam towards it. Seconds later he became aware of the others, huddled around it and manoeuvring themselves towards the stern.

  He pulled himself towards the surface – gradually, so as not to make a noise when he emerged. As he came up into the open air, he was aware of Westminster Bridge hulking above them ten to fifteen metres away.

  The team worked silently, but with swift skill. While the others boarded, two of the men would stay in the water to provide covering fire if necessary. So they peeled off while the remaining six prepared to board. First off, the washing line: they fixed magnets to the tatty paintwork of the blue hull, allowing them to strip themselves of their masks, Drägers, fins and weight belts and attach this unneeded gear to the boat. Once they’d done that, one of the lads produced a telescopic pole, while another started to unfurl a rolled-up rope ladder. The top end of the ladder, which had two hooks on each side, was fitted to the end of the pole; as the pole was extended, the ladder continued to unfurl completely until they were able to hook it over the side of the boat, towards the stern. All this took less than thirty seconds.

  Jack took to the ladder first and started climbing up the freeboard. As he emerged from the water, he felt the water draining not only off his body, but also out of his weapon. He moved quickly. Just as his head was about to appear over the edge of the boat he stopped and took a deep breath. Then he peered over.

  The first thing he checked was that there was nobody on deck to spot him. It was empty. The cabin was painted white and was entirely surrounded by deck. There were windows all around, but they were sufficiently high for him to be able to crouch underneath them. He didn’t hesitate a second longer. He swung his legs over the side and landed silently on deck. He moved tow
ards the walls of the cabin where he stayed under the windows. He unclipped his MP5 and waited for the remaining five members of the boarding team to join him. They were up and over in seconds.

  Jack made a quick hand gesture to indicate that three of the team should move round to the other side of the cabin. He waited two seconds for them to get into position, then, still crouching, he crept round to the entrance of the cabin. He removed a flash-bang from his ops waistcoat, and held up three fingers to his opposite number on the other side of the door.

  Two fingers.

  One.

  Jack pulled the pin, pushed the door open and hurled it through. A sudden, ear-blistering crack and a flash of light – enough to disorientate anyone who wasn’t used to it. Jack and his team were used to it, though. By the time the grenade had exploded, Jack was inside, moving through the cabin with all the force and anger of a tsunami.

  His eyes zeroed in on Khan. The fucker might have shaved off his beard, but Jack would recognise that face anywhere. As he stormed towards him, his MP5 pointing directly at his enemy’s head, he felt a sudden burst of anger and hatred surging through his veins. He wanted to roar, to make him feel tenfold every ounce of pain he was carrying with him on account of Siobhan’s death. To make the bastard suffer.

  Khan must have seen that in him. Or maybe other things were going through his twisted mind. Either way, in the split second it took for Jack to be upon him, a fierce, insane look burned behind his eyes. He was standing over a metal flight case – Jack recognised it easily enough. It was open, and Khan’s arm was hovering over it.

  He lowered his hand.

  Jack launched himself through the air. Khan crashed to the ground, his thin body crushed by Jack’s enormous bulk. Jack put the MP5 against his skull, and was a nanosecond away from firing it and spraying the cunt’s brains all over the interior of the cabin. But at the last moment he stopped himself. He looked over his shoulder. The second member of the crew was on the floor with three of the team suppressing him. The remaining two SAS men were hulking above Jack, MP5s trained on Khan.