by Chris Ryan
Spud inhaled sharply. ‘Are you sure?’
Danny cursed. His hands had gone shaky. Probably just the cold. He realigned his sights so they were fixed on this new target, who had raised his arms and was being scanned by the security guys at the gate. The guy held out a rucksack, which one of the security guys looked through.
‘He had a scar on his neck,’ Danny muttered to himself, still watching. ‘A bad one . . . He’d want to hide it . . .’
‘Mucker, what are you talking about?’
Danny let out a low hiss. ‘Watch – he’s not following the others to the church. He’s heading in this direction . . .’
And he was. The guy was looking over his left shoulder, checking that he wasn’t being observed by the security guys on the gate. They were too busy searching a few new arrivals, however, and the guy easily slipped towards the treeline and out of Danny’s sight.
He lowered his scope. ‘I’m going to find him,’ he said. But his voice suddenly sounded slurred, and Spud was looking at him in a curious way.
‘Mate, I’m not fucking with you . . . You don’t look—’
‘Just keep eyes on the latecomers, check for anyone suspicious.’
Danny backed carefully out of the clump of bushes that formed his OP, rifle in hand, the freezing cold metal almost burning his skin. At least, he thought to himself, the mist was also obscuring him and Spud. Standing up, he hid the suppressed weapon under his long coat. And once he was fully clear of the bushes, he stood very still. Here, among the trees, his sense of hearing would be just as important as his vision. His target had entered the treeline fifty metres north of their position, at a bearing of approximately thirty-five degrees. Danny estimated that he’d cross his line of sight in approximately one minute, before heading north to meet the road that led from Sandringham House to the church. Camouflaged by the thick trunk of an old oak tree, he waited for the telltale sound of footsteps shuffling through the forest.
They didn’t come.
He peered out from behind the tree trunk and immediately discerned movement, thirty metres distant. The mist meant he couldn’t quite make out the figure, but he had a sense of someone picking their way east, but slowly. Like a pro. Danny moved swiftly, cutting noiselessly from tree to tree, stopping behind each one to check he wasn’t observed. His target was moving well, but Danny was moving better, closing the gap quickly. When it had closed to fifteen metres, he removed his rifle, pressed the butt hard into his shoulder and aimed it directly at the moving target . . .
The target stopped with his back to Danny. Distance, ten metres. Danny could see clouds of the man’s breath condensing in the cold air. He showed no sign of knowing he was being followed. He pulled his rucksack off his back, knelt down and started removing unseen objects from the bag. Danny heard the gentle click and clunk of items being slotted together. A sound he knew well . . .
Very calmly, and quietly, he spoke.
‘Hands in the air, you piece of shit.’
The target froze. He didn’t raise his arms, but looked over his shoulder. Dark, hooded eyes widened. Then his arms shot up into the air.
‘I’m approaching,’ Danny said. ‘Don’t make a fucking mistake.’
‘I wanted to find the best place for a shot,’ the target muttered.
I bet you did, you piece of shit, Danny thought as he took a couple of paces forward. But all he said was: ‘Take your scarf off.’
The target hesitated.
‘Take it off,’ Danny repeated.
The target slowly lowered his arms. His hands were trembling. He slowly started to loosen the scarf. Three winds, and it was off.
‘Drop it. Then put your hands on your head and stand up.’
The scarf coiled to the floor. The target followed his instructions and got to his feet.
‘Turn round.’
He turned.
‘Let me see your neck.’
Danny knew immediately, from his target’s expression of confusion, that he’d made a bad mistake. The guy loosened the top of his coat and raised his chin to display his neck. There was no marking. Just a little downy stubble. Danny looked at the ground. The gear that he’d been clicking together was camera equipment.
‘Who are you?’ Danny growled.
‘Ph – photographer,’ the guy stuttered. ‘P – paparazzi. I just wanted to . . . Look, I can leave now . . .’ He stepped back.
Instinct took over. Danny surged forward, lowering his weapon as he moved. This guy obviously thought Danny was part of the royal security team. If he twigged that he wasn’t, all hell could break loose. Danny needed to silence him. Quickly.
One hit was all it took. A solid, sharp blow to the neck. Not enough to kill him, or even to cause permanent harm. But enough to put him down, unconscious.
The guy crumpled heavily to the ground. Danny was suddenly sweating badly. Breathing heavily. He looked around, checking for threats. He was suddenly dizzy.
Exhaustion. Cold. Panic. It was all catching up with him. He staggered towards a tree trunk and supported himself against it. The same nausea he’d experienced the night before came rushing back on him, only twice as bad this time.
His knees weakened. He crouched down.
Maybe if he just closed his eyes for ten seconds . . .
No—
He opened them again. But everything became a blur: bare, wintry trees . . . dark evergreen bushes . . . and were there figures, moving at a distance through the forest?
Danny’s eyes rolled. He felt his head against the tree trunk. Everything was dark.
He saw a motorcade trundling slowly along the road. Two black cars. Eight or nine people walking alongside. Shrouded in mist. Yellow Seven was there. And Violets One, Two and Three. And Tony. Suddenly, from the far side of the road, five figures appeared. They wore camouflage fatigues, balaclavas, black and white shemaghs. They brandished rifles. They looked like they had walked straight out of the badlands of Iraq, not emerged from the forests of Sandringham.
One of them was holding a baby. It was screaming. A shrill, desperate scream that pierced everything. Nobody seemed to pay it any attention. Danny didn’t understand it. Why was nobody helping the child? It was weeping blood . . .
The militants opened up. A choking thunder of automatic rifle fire. The motorcade windscreens shattered. The rounds ripped twisted holes into the metal. Blood spattered over the tarmac as the walkers hit the ground . . .
There were more screams. More automatic fire. But above it all, the constant, horrible, desolate wailing of the baby . . .
Danny’s whole body started. He was still crouched down by the tree. The mist was surrounding him like a blanket.
He forced himself to his feet. Mastered the exhaustion again. He looked over to check that the photographer was still down. He was.
Then he realised he could hear something. A car engine. Maybe more than one. Quiet. Moving slowly. North-east of here. Hard to tell the distance, because the mist and the trees were messing with the sound.
Time check. 0946 hours.
Shit. The royals’ motorcade.
He picked up his weapon. Inhaled deeply. Checked his surroundings. No sign of movement.
The road was thirty metres through the trees. Danny crashed through the forest, cold sweat dripping into his eyes, breath billowing all around him. He reached the edge of the treeline ten seconds later. Kept himself hidden behind a thick tree trunk again. A grey figure in the all-encompassing mist, he knew he would be invisible to those not looking for him. And from here he finally had eyes on the royals.
The motorcade was thirty metres from Danny’s position, and it was moving very slowly. Almost like a funeral procession. In his hallucination there had been three vehicles. In reality there were two, one behind the other. He predicted that the front vehicle would be security. The senior royals would be in the car behind. At the front of the motorcade was a TV camera guy, walking backwards with a camera on his shoulder, filming the convoy. Trailing the
second car were all those who had decided to get to the church on foot. Danny instantly picked out Violet Two and his missus. Violets One and Three were walking in a little group on the far side of the vehicle. There were three CP guys – the unnecessary sunglasses gave them away. And Yellow Seven, trailing at the back, with Tony beside him. Tony was the only security guy not wearing shades. He appeared to be in deep, flamboyant conversation with his new royal buddy, but Danny – who had been trained to notice such things, and who now zeroed in on him with his scope – observed that even though he was making a show of paying attention to Yellow Seven, his eyes were darting all over the place. Into the trees on the left and right. Up, down, straight ahead. And while he gestured with his left hand, his right was constantly resting by the buttons of his suit jacket. He was ready to grab his sidearm if the situation called for it.
Tony was on high alert. No question.
Danny too. The weakness he had felt since arriving in the UK had fallen away. Everything seemed crystal clear. He had failed to locate the terrorists’ shooting position. Now he only had one choice.
Wait for them to shoot. Then follow the line of fire.
He turned his attention from the motorcade towards the trees on the other side of the road. They were dark, gnarled shapes in the mist. Easy to hide in. Difficult to penetrate. If there was a shooter waiting, or more than one, Danny was still sure that they would be using the tree cover by the side of the route to hide.
Motorcade distance, twenty-five metres. Danny lowered his scope and turned to peer through the woods on his side of the road. Nothing moved. Back to the motorcade. Yellow Seven was talking at Tony nineteen to the dozen. Tony was nodding vaguely, but Danny could see that really he was trying to look through the treeline on both sides.
Twenty metres.
Danny’s heart was thumping. There were no militants on this side of the road, he decided. He would have seen them by now – or they would have seen him. He decided to concentrate on the trees at the far side. With their mist-shrouded, gnarled shapes, some of them even looked like people. Spotting a shooter at this distance, in these conditions, was a massive ask.
But when the motorcade was fifteen metres distant, he spotted something.
It moved. A grey silhouette. The height of a man. Danny trained his rifle, zoning out the thick knot of mist and trees, focussing on that moving silhouette. His finger rested carefully on the trigger.
His eyes tightened.
The figure had stopped.
Danny had a decision to make. Should he fire? A suppressed round would be all but inaudible. He wouldn’t give away his presence. He could stop an imminent attack.
But he’d also lose the chance of getting a lead to his daughter. And what if this figure in the trees was entirely innocent, like the photographer he’d just put to the ground?
Danny took his eye from the scope and checked the position of the motorcade. It was now almost adjacent to his position. Distance, ten metres. Yellow Seven was laughing loudly. Tony was grinning, but also looking left and right, his gun hand still at the ready.
He suddenly locked gazes with Danny. He had clearly picked him out behind the treeline – the only one of the royal CP team who had done so. Tony raised an eyebrow. It was a sly, arrogant expression, but Tony couldn’t hide his anxiousness: the slight twitch around the eyes, the way he momentarily bit his lower lip.
But he did nothing to reveal Danny’s location. Danny himself looked back through his scope. The motorcade passed in front of it. The black vehicles dominated Danny’s field of view. He had to pull away again and watch the royals pass with his naked eye. Tony glanced in his direction once more, then to the left.
Danny’s heart thumped. He was waiting for the shot . . .
Waiting for one of them to go down . . .
Waiting for the bastard militant who could lead him to his daughter to reveal himself . . .
He could hear Yellow Seven’s braying voice barking a boorish laugh. Tony was still smiling. Still glancing occasionally towards Danny.
And now, the motorcade had passed his position.
Danny moved through the trees, keeping adjacent to the vehicles, every sense on high alert. The motorcade had another thirty metres to travel before it cleared the tree cover on either side of the road. He took a moment to scan the trees on the other side through his scope. Again, the gnarled, mist-shrouded trunks came into focus. Again, he thought he saw a figure, mirroring Danny’s own movement alongside the vehicles.
The figure increased its speed, so now it was in position just ahead of the motorcade. Danny kept up . . . stopping when the figure stopped . . . raising his weapon . . . trying to see the face through his scope . . .
The mist cleared momentarily. His target’s features flashed across the scope’s field of view.
White skin. Headset. Boom mike.
This was no shooter. It was a member of the royal CP team.
Danny lowered his weapon. He was sucking in lungfuls of air. The motorcade cleared the treeline. The CP guy emerged from the trees on the other side of the road.
Tony looked back over his shoulder, sneering dismissively at Danny.
The motorcade entered the cordoned-off area in front of the church.
The royals peeled off to shake hands with their adoring public.
They were completely unharmed.
Twenty-four
London. 0958 hours.
– All units, this is unit base. The PM has arrived. Repeat, the PM has arrived.
Barker stood up and looked back down the aisle of the abbey. He could see the Prime Minister’s entourage, rather than the PM himself. A huddle of approximately ten people entering the building. Three CP guys at the front. Two girls – the PM’s daughters. His wife. The PM was in there somewhere but Barker couldn’t see him. More CP guys at the back. Everyone in the congregation – it was full now, and buzzing – had turned their heads to take a look.
Barker turned his attention elsewhere. The podgy clergyman with the sweaty upper lip had taken his place up at the altar. His ornate communion chalice was right in front of him. To either side, set slightly back, were two more clergymen. And behind them, in the facing choir pews, fifty or sixty young choristers. All boys.
Barker’s eyes shot back to the clergymen. Was it his imagination, or did they look nervous?
He glanced over at his mate Connor who was standing by a column on the other side of the abbey. He was watching the clergyman too. Watching him very closely . . .
‘Move.’
Barker started. The PM’s entourage had reached him. One of the CP guys was nudging him. Barker stepped to one side, allowing the security guys, then the PM, then the girls, then the PM’s wife, to take their seats. Barker took his own position in the same row, in the seat next to the aisle. He had barely glanced at the famous face of the Prime Minister, which he was seeing in the flesh for the first time.
The organ music swelled. Then stopped.
Silence in the abbey. Someone coughed. It echoed around the vaults.
Silence again.
The clergyman at the altar raised his hands, palms outward.
‘My brothers and sisters,’ he announced. His voice, picked up by the small microphone on his lapel, echoed over the loudspeakers. ‘In the name of Christ, I—’
Feedback squeaked over the loudspeakers. The sweating priest hesitated. He lowered his hands and moved them to his belt area, hidden by the altar.
It was pure instinct that made Barker move his hand to his own holster. And from the corner of his eye he saw Connor taking several steps forward from his position in the wings. Just as Barker was feeling for his sidearm, however, his earpiece burst into life again. Barker recognised Conlin’s withering voice.
— Relax, everyone. He’s adjusting his microphone pack.
Barker let his hand fall to his side. The priest cleared his throat and tried again. ‘In the name of Christ I welcome you! We have come together to . . .’
Barker zoned out as the clergyman droned on. Hyper-aware, he sensed movement up on the side balcony, but a quick glance told him it was a Regiment shooter shifting position.
Movement to the right. It was just one of the PM’s kids fidgeting.
‘. . . through scripture and silence, prayer and song . . .’
Movement behind the altar.
Barker caught his breath. Everything went into slow motion. Because he had suddenly realised, beyond question, where the threat lay.
All of the choristers standing in the pews behind the altar were under sixteen, some of them much younger than that. All white. Except one. He stood out, not just on account of his dark skin and black hair among the blue-eyed, blond angels surrounding him, but also because he was the only one moving. As the priest droned on, he had bent down, looking nervously from left to right, and was now holding a navy-blue rucksack in front of him.
One of the adjacent choirboys looked at his companion. Confused. A bit irritated. He clearly hadn’t been expecting this to happen. It was more than high jinks. It was unusual . . .
It was as if everything else in the abbey had become a blur. The only person on whom Barker was focussed was the dark-skinned chorister. Barker stepped out into the aisle. He strode up towards the altar. Somewhere on the edge of his perception, he sensed that the priest had stopped talking. He pulled his sidearm, unlocking it as he picked up pace towards the altar.
Voices in his ear.
– Barker, what the hell are you doing?
– Stand down! Repeat, stand down!
Barker did not stand down. He continued past the altar, running now, his weapon raised and held in two hands, the choirboy firmly in his sights.
Someone screamed. Several people. There was shouting all around. As Barker homed in on his target, the other choirboys fell to the ground like wilting flowers. His target, however, remained standing, clutching the rucksack close to his chest like it was the most precious thing in the world.
Distance: ten metres.
‘DROP THE BAG!’ Barker shouted, and his voice echoed dramatically around the abbey. ‘I SAID, DROP THE BAG!’
