Soft Target 02 - Tank

by Conrad Jones

  SOFT TARGET II ‘Tank’

  CONRAD JONES

  First published in Great Britain in 2010

  by

  GerriCon Books Ltd

  Orford Green

  Suite 1

  Warrington

  Cheshire

  WA2 8PA

  www.gerriconbooks.co.uk

  Copyright © 2010 Conrad Jones

  Names, characters and related indicia are copyright and trademark

  Copyright © 2010 Conrad Jones

  Conrad Jones has asserted his moral rights

  to be identified as the author

  A CIP Catalogue of this book is available from

  the British Library

  ISBN: 978-0-9561034-13

  The places named in this book are real. The fictional events are based on

  factual ones but have been changed by the author.

  Any similarity between the fictional characters and people in

  the public domain are coincidental, and are generated purely

  from the imagination of the author.

  All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced or

  transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying

  or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher.

  Cover Photos: ©istockphoto.com

  Cover designed and typeset in Minion 11pt

  by Chandler Book Design

  www.chandlerbookdesign.co.uk

  Other titles by Conrad Jones

  SOFT TARGET

  SOFT TARGET II ‘TANK’

  SOFT TARGET III ‘JERUSALEM’

  THE 18TH BRIGADE

  BLISTER

  CHILD TAKER

  SLOW BURN

  Death Tax

  Nine Angels

  Undisputed

  Chapter 1

  Chester

  The vessel Princess Dianna was tied to its moorings, and swayed gently as the muddy waters of the River Dee flowed lazily around her. The beautiful white riverboat had been hosting floating parties on the River Dee for over twenty years. A crowd of impatient revellers stood on the promenade waiting to board the Dianna, many of the crowd were already inebriated and the volume grew louder as the safety rails were removed to allow boarding to begin. The partygoers were predominantly students from the local Chester University, celebrating the end of their second year. Chester was founded as a fortress town by the Romans in AD 79 and was the scene of battles between warring Welsh armies and the Anglo-Saxons for centuries. It boasts the best-preserved Roman walls in the United Kingdom, which follow the course of the river. The city’s university was a magnet for students from all over the world. The banks of the River Dee and its’ Roman ruins are a favourite tourist destination, lined with wide tree covered areas, which are terraced so that people can sit and picnic close to the flowing water. At the centre of the tourist area, high above the water a white suspension bridge carries a footpath from one bank to the other. Swans and ducks inhabit the area in large numbers fascinating young children and adults alike. Small cafe bars and restaurants, which are situated beneath the forty-foot Roman walls, are packed all year round.

  The men that were invited to the end of term function were dressed in black tie attire and the women wore ball gowns of every colour and description. Four waiters dressed in white formal naval suits adorned with gold buttons and braid stood on the afterdeck holding trays of champagne for the giddy guests to take as they arrived on board. The pilot of ‘The Princess Dianna’ revved the propellers in anticipation of departure, the water at the stern of the boat turned to white foam as the huge engines growled. The drunken students cheered and clapped as the water splashed and foamed; the Captain sounded the foghorn and the students cheered again, excited by the ships preparations to sail.

  Ivan Coley and Matt Halt sat at a table watching the students board the riverboat. They were drinking pints of lager in the beer garden of a bar called the Boathouse, as they waited for their target to arrive. The riverside bars were always busy, especially on long warm summer evenings like this one. The two men sat unnoticed by the crowds of chattering tourists that surrounded them, until they stood up. Both men stood over six feet tall and were unusually heavily muscled; they both had shaved heads and a menacing aura. They belonged to a secretive fascist organisation known as the 18th Brigade, a splinter group of a more mainstream white nationalist political party that boasted over fifty councillors in local government. They were committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration, by both legal and violent means. America and Europe had experienced the rise and fall of hundreds of small neo-Nazi groups since the demise of Adolph Hitler. In recent times, however the Internet and other technological advances had fuelled and moulded such groups into organised political parties and crime syndicates. Eastern Europe and the Russian satellite countries had experienced an explosion of organised crime, involving drugs trafficking and the sex trade. The majority of the successful crime organisations hold fascist ideals, and attract members of smaller Nazi groups into their employ. Ivan and Matt were two such affiliates. They were not fully aware of who was pulling their strings today, but they didn’t really care. To be trusted to complete a mission of such political significance as this was a real macho ego boost. It would put the 18th Brigade on the worldwide map; people would have to take their organisation far more seriously from now on. The political muscle gained would increase their share of the drugs business, and that meant that a significant amount of money could be made.

  A black Mercedes pulled slowly to a halt close to the Dianna’s berth. A man of Middle Eastern appearance opened the front passenger door and stepped from the vehicle; he was wearing a red and white headdress, which identified him as a Saudi Arabian national. He scanned the area through dark sunglasses. The Saudi bodyguard reached for the handle of the rear door and opened it. A young woman exited the backseat and stood on the busy promenade. She was dark skinned with long jet-black hair and her eyes were a deep brown, almost liquid looking. Her hair blew gently in the breeze and looked like black satin. She wore a sparkling silver gown and appeared every inch to be a princess. Her name was Jeannie Kellesh and she was the youngest daughter of a Saudi Arabian diplomat, and the target of a politically motivated kidnap plot.

  “That is her. The target has been dropped at the promenade. Wait until the driver and the bodyguard have left,” Matt Halt said into a small transmitter that was fitted to his jacket lapel. Ivan Coley walked slowly toward the Mercedes and put on a pair of dark sunglasses. His size and demeanour made him look like a bouncer. No one in the waiting crowd paid any attention to him. The Saudi bodyguard climbed back into the black car and it drove away. Their instructions were to wait for the return of Jeannie Kellesh in an allocated parking zone two hundred yards away. As the Mercedes pulled off, Matt took a small spray bottle from his jacket pocket and walked toward the Saudi Princess. She was standing alone at the rear of the waiting guests; everyone’s attention was focused on the boat as boarding had begun. He squirted a fine mist into her face as he passed and she collapsed onto the floor immediately. The spray contained a concentrated chemical that was derived from chloroform and could drop a gorilla in seconds.

  “Stand back, she has fainted. Give her some room please,” Ivan said to the concerned onlookers as he attended to the fallen woman. He spoke into a walkie-talkie and called for medical backup increasing the creditability of their pretence as security guards. Few people in the crowd paid any attention to the incident, which seemed to be under control. An ambulance appeared almost immediately and two shaven headed paramedics exited the vehicle. The medics wore lime green jump suits as they went about their business with a concerned professional man
ner. They placed the Saudi woman on a stretcher. A guest who was already aboard the vessel thought he had seen a Swastika tattooed on the wrist of one of the paramedics, which he thought was a little odd. Within seconds Jeannie was put into the back of the ambulance and whisked away.

  Ivan Coley and Matt Halt walked away from the promenade toward a car park that was a short distance away from the riverboat’s birth, behind the Boathouse pub. Matt seemed extremely anxious to get away from the boat but Ivan just put it down to him being nervous. They had orchestrated the kidnapping of a foreign diplomat’s daughter after all. Excited students were still boarding The Princess Dianna gossiping about the poor girl who had fainted on the promenade. Shore crewmen started to unfasten the huge ropes that attached the riverboat to its rusted metal mooring rings, and the foghorn blasted again as the boat prepared to depart. The propellers roared again and a tall plume of frothy water erupted at the stern of the boat.

  Suddenly an explosion from deep within the lower decks of The Princess Dianna shattered the vessel into a million pieces of flying debris. The bodies of those revelling on board the boat were torn into red confetti, and blasted over a large area of the River Dee. Only the lower section of the boat’s hull remained in a recognisable piece, still attached to its moorings. Ivan Coley was blown off his feet by the force of the shockwave, and he was still stunned as Matt Halt stooped to pull his huge frame up off the floor.

  “What the fuck just happened then Matt? Please tell me that was nothing to do with what we have just done,” Ivan said in a hurried mumble. He looked back at the ruined hull of the riverboat, and the unrecognisable scene of carnage that surrounded it. Panic was starting to cloud his mind as the realisation of what he had become involved in hit him. He looked at Matt for some kind reaction but Matt just ignored the question and pulled him toward their van. They had arrived at the river in a white Ford Transit an hour before, and parked the vehicle behind the Boathouse. Ivan had noticed that the storage compartment of the van was packed with five litre drums of gasoline. Matt had told him that the fuel was required for a project later that week and Ivan had no reason not to believe him; they had torched two mosques and a synagogue only the week before, as inciting racial tensions was high on the Brigade agenda.

  “Matt, tell me what just happened was nothing to do with us grabbing that girl,” Ivan spoke slowly and tried to hide the panic that was in his voice. They had agreed to kidnap and hold the girl for a couple of days, but no one mentioned blowing up two hundred students. Ivan knew that the explosion must be linked to what they had done; it could not be a coincidence. They reached the van and Matt was still pushing him forward and ignoring his questions. Frightened tourists were running for safety away from the river. Many were seriously injured and screamed as they ran through the car park away from the carnage. Ivan noticed a young man carrying what looked like his own severed hand trying to open the door of his car; he placed the severed appendage on the roof of the vehicle whilst he opened the door and climbed in, as if he were carrying his shopping.

  Matt opened the door of the Transit van and jumped into the passenger seat, and then shouted at Ivan to do the same on the driver’s side. Ivan opened the door and flopped into the driver’s seat. He felt hot tears stinging his eyes and rolling down his cheeks. He felt like he was going to vomit as he watched a middle aged woman crawling away from her severed leg. Ivan began to rage inside as he assessed the hellish scene around him. He had not agreed to this. He was not averse to using violence but not against his own kind. Not innocent bystanders. He turned toward Matt and opened his mouth to speak. Matt sprayed the concentrated chloroform into Ivan’s open mouth and he passed out before he could say a word. Matt grabbed a canister of petrol and poured it all over the unconscious skinhead. He placed a short black-haired wig onto Ivan’s baldhead and then doused the rest of the vehicle. The vehicle was registered to a Blackburn man named Abdul Aziz; the hair would just muddy the water further, making identification near impossible. The discovery of a burnt out van belonging to a Muslim gentleman this close to the explosion, would send the police looking for Islamic extremists. Ivan’s charred remains would give them a suspect. The fact that he was dead would make them think that this was a suicide mission and they would hopefully look no further. Matt grabbed another full container and covered Ivan with the contents. Ivan stirred a little as the liquid entered his mouth and nostrils; he coughed as the stinging liquid ran down his throat. Matt opened the passenger door and collided with an old man and his wife as they tried to escape across the car park. The old man stopped next to the van and asked Matt if he would help them.

  “Fuck off granddad or I will give you something to moan about,” Matt snarled at the elderly couple as they staggered away from the van toward safety. Matt struck a match and with it he lit a twisted piece of newspaper. He tossed the burning paper into Ivan’s lap and turned him into a human inferno. The flames from the van shattered the windows of the vehicle with their intensity. A huge orange fireball spiralled fifty feet upward as the fuel canisters in the back of the transit exploded.

  Chapter 2

  Terrorist Task Force

  John Tankersley was the lead officer of the Terrorist Task Force, a mixed group of civilian and military personnel that specialised in counter-terrorism operations. He stood over six feet tall and carried seventeen stones of solid muscle on his huge frame, his friends and colleagues called him ‘Tank’. He walked slowly around the police cordon, which surrounded the scene of the riverboat bomb. Uniformed officers from the Cheshire Constabulary had sealed the area off from the press and the public. There were over two hundred students on the vessel Princess Dianna when it was torn apart by an explosion. Distraught family members and the press were encamped around the scene awaiting information.

  Tank watched as a dozen, Scene of Crime Officers (SOCO) painstakingly searched through the debris of the bombing. There was an ever-increasing line of plastic body bags being formed on the car park of the Boathouse pub. The shapes beneath the plastic liners had no resemblance to a human form; they were merely remnants to be identified at a later date. A further two SOCO were busy analysing the remains of a burnt out van which was also on the car park. One of the officers noticed Tank’s approach and removed a white paper suit from his field kit.

  “Good afternoon, sir, could you put this on please,” the officer said passing the protective clothing to Tank. Tank wrestled his huge frame into the paper suit and walked to where the two men were working.

  “What are your first impressions of the situation?” Tank asked as he ran his huge hand over his shaved head. He always did this when he was thinking.

  “We are ruling out an accidental explosion. We have found fragments of explosive caps stuck into the boat’s hull which would suggest a sophisticated explosive device was placed below decks. The fire crews originally thought that this van might have caught fire as a result of burning debris, however upon further inspection, it’s obvious that an accelerant has been used. There is virtually nothing left of whoever this body belonged to and the way the vans sub-frame has melted suggests a large amount of flammable material was inside it,” the SOCO explained.

  “Could have been suicide attack then?” Tank pushed the scientist for his opinion. The next few hours of the investigation would prove crucial, but it was very easy to make assumptions and follow a wild goose chase. Tank wanted to be absolutely sure that they would start the investigation in the correct place.

  “If you are thinking that it could be an Islamic extremist attack then I would be very careful,” the investigator warned, “the type of devices that use explosive caps similar to the ones that we have found, are far more sophisticated than we are used to seeing in this country.”

  Tank had to agree with the SOCO. Most attacks on British soil were carried out using various homemade devices, which combined hydrogen peroxide with flour. It was an extremely eftive explosive when manufactured correctly. The deaths of fifty two people and the injurie
s caused to seven hundred more were the result of such an explosive device on Thursday, July 7th 2005. British Muslim extremists carried out a direct attack on London’s overcrowded public transport network using such homemade explosives with catastrophic results. The evidence from the riverboat scene was pointing to the fact that, the explosion that had destroyed the vessel Princess Dianna was caused by a plastic explosive substance such as Semtex. This fact made the involvement of extremists unlikely; it indicated involvement of a military nature.

  Tank had spent much of his military career in Special Forces operations. He trained the counter-terrorist forces of a dozen different countries in the use of plastic explosives and covert operations, especially members of the Soviet Union. In 1991 when the huge Russian Empire started to collapse, so did the intelligence agencies of its satellite countries. This made thousands of expertly trained covert agents unemployed. Many became mercenaries for sale to the highest bidder, others used their talents to their own ends and crime organisations appeared all over Eastern Europe. Their military talents, which included the use of explosives, struck fear into the hearts of their enemies and law-enforcement agencies alike. Tank knew that whoever manufactured this bomb had the knowledge that could only be acquired from Special Forces personnel. Furthermore, this type of explosive chemical was strictly weapons grade and difficult to acquire. Semtex and explosives in general have two grades, commercial grade for mining or demolition, and weapons grade for munitions.